How do you cook your Hard Boiled Eggs?

How do you cook your Hard Boiled Eggs?

I did not know there were so many different cooking methods.

I have not boiled eggs since I got a cute little machine that steams them.

I have never heard of baked hard boiled eggs:


https://getpocket.com/explore/item/we-tried-7-ways-to-hard-boil-eggs-and-found-a-clear-winner

I've tried a few boiling methods with various times and temperatures (cold start, boiling start, air cooled, cold water bath, ice bath) as well as steaming. I like Kenji Lopez Alt's version best.

A bit different out of necessity.... :-)

We have very free ranging.....and free nesting....chickens.  We do our best to monitor egg laying, but as you might suspect, often lose track of egg ages.  So we end up with buckets of eggs of different ages and stages.  To ensure that I'm not hard-boiling undesirable eggs, I will coat a shallow heat-resistant bowl with a film of coconut oil or margarine, then crack and observe each egg going into the bowl for quality.  Once I have enough for hard cooking, the bowl is placed in a steaming rack in a large shallow skillet.  About 1/2 -3/4 inches of water is placed in the skillet and covered with a lid.  The stove top is set for medium high and once steam is escaping from the lid, turned down to medium for 12 - 15 min.   Eggs are essentially steam poached to a hard state and once cooled diced up en masse and added to potato salad, egg, salad, etc.  Clean up is a bit easier with the oiled bowl.

Funny timing

I just cooked my second batch of hard boiled eggs ever.  An hour ago

Last time, the eggs were really fresh, so I used the pressure cooker.  It makes it easier to get the shells off.

This time, I wanted one for a photo shoot.  I asked the person who would eat the rejects and he said put room temp eggs in room temp water.  Bring to boil.  Turn off. Timer 10 min.  Drain.

He hasn't complained or died, so I think I did okay.

I make hard boiled eggs even when I mean to make them "soft"
Observations - if the egg tips up onto its pointy end when popped into water deep enough for it to do so, then its very fresh.  After boiling, leave to cool with the lid off the pan - this avoids the black ring that can form around the yolk.  Then to peel, crack the shell by rolling on the bench, and commence peeling from the pointy end.  Somehow this arcane procedure seems to work.  Now, how do I make a soft boiled egg???

John Weiland wrote:A bit different out of necessity.... :-)

We have very free ranging.....and free nesting....chickens.  We do our best to monitor egg laying, but as you might suspect, often lose track of egg ages.  So we end up with buckets of eggs of different ages and stages.  To ensure that I'm not hard-boiling undesirable eggs, I will coat a shallow heat-resistant bowl with a film of coconut oil or margarine, then crack and observe each egg going into the bowl for quality.  Once I have enough for hard cooking, the bowl is placed in a steaming rack in a large shallow skillet.  About 1/2 -3/4 inches of water is placed in the skillet and covered with a lid.  The stove top is set for medium high and once steam is escaping from the lid, turned down to medium for 12 - 15 min.   Eggs are essentially steam poached to a hard state and once cooled diced up en masse and added to potato salad, egg, salad, etc.  Clean up is a bit easier with the oiled bowl.

I'm in exactly the same boat, but I float my eggs before use.  It's been pretty reliable for me when determining age.  How much the bottom wants to angle up when placed in the water is the indicator.  If they sit almost flat on the bottom, just slightly tilted, they're fresh.  I'll go up to about 45-degrees before I consider them questionable, and at that point the inner white will break down pretty quickly.  I've pushed it as far as about 60-degrees, but it's dicey and beyond that they're inedible.  If they don't remain in contact with the bottom of the bowl...handle them very gently, it's a stink bomb.

Jill Dyer wrote:I make hard boiled eggs even when I mean to make them "soft"
Observations - if the egg tips up onto its pointy end when popped into water deep enough for it to do so, then its very fresh.  After boiling, leave to cool with the lid off the pan - this avoids the black ring that can form around the yolk.  Then to peel, crack the shell by rolling on the bench, and commence peeling from the pointy end.  Somehow this arcane procedure seems to work.  Now, how do I make a soft boiled egg???

I generally prefer a method I learned from some German friends.
1. boil your water.
2. punch a tiny hole into the bottom of the egg where the air sack is.
(the German homes apparently have a special tool for this...of course they do.  I've taken to using a diabetes lancing device, it works great.  Before I stumbled onto that, I just used a metal skewer tip.  The hole in the bottom keeps the shell from cracking due to thermal shock.)
3. Lower the eggs into the boiling water on a spoon.

3 minutes for soft boiled
5 minutes for medium boiled
7 minutes for hard boiled.
(per my German friends)

Apparently they have another special tool for cutting the top of the shell off as well, so you can eat it with a tiny spoon.  I've not seen it, but I could ask them if there is interest.

It works pretty well, I'm fond of the results.  I do the same for making hard-hard boiled eggs, but I go to 8 minutes then put them directly in an ice bath and stir until I don't feel heat emanating from them any longer.  Usually 7-8 minutes.  Then they are pretty easy to peel.  If the peels stick from there, I peel them in the bowl of water.

i bring them to a boil and boil for 12 minutes, dump out the water and let cool. I have tried some variations and not really found many major differences. That said, I like my eggs HARD boiled, not jammy, and I don't tend to get the green or black ring around the yolk (not sure why) no matter what I do. Not complaining.

As for ease of peeling, I've tried steaming, baking, adding things to the water, shocking with cold water after boiling, etc and really found no difference. it seems to come down to each group of eggs. Letting them cool thoroughly may be the only thing that helps, that I've found anyway.

Tereza Okava wrote:Letting them cool thoroughly may be the only thing that helps, that I've found anyway.

Same here. I don't do the ice bath. I leave them in the fridge for a couple days before I try to peel them. That works great.

I grew up putting cold eggs in boiling water and cooking for I forget how long...fifteen minutes?

In the '90s, Shirley O. Corriher's book Cookwise came out and I started putting the eggs in cold water, bringing them to the boil, turning off the heat, and letting them stand for 12 minutes before shocking them in an ice-bath.

Then about ten years ago we bought an Instant Pot, and tried hard-cooking them in a steamer basket (I'd have to look up the setting and time) and they were perfect and reliably easier to peel than any other method I've tried. So that's what I do until the next revelation takes place. (Though it's hard to argue with Kenji per Kenneth's post above, so maybe I'll try that and see what I think.)

I steam eggs from a cold start and start timing when it starts boiling and steam for 10 minutes. Then into the fridge until cold. I dont have an issue peeling fairly fresh eggs this way.

Like Grandma did: Cold eggs into cold water, that way their temperature comes up gradually. They can break if you put a cold egg into hot water, or even if you heat it too fast, just like if you put cold water into a hot glass mug or baking dish. Cold + hot = crack.... oooh, like a storm! When the hot front meets the cold front there'll be a storm!

Once the water starts boiling I time at least 10 minutes, but often longer if I forget.
My Swedish boss said the same except once it comes to a rolling boil, put a lid on and turn it off, letting it sit lidded for at least 10 minutes. This is a fuel-saving method. I tried it and it worked fine, so sometimes I do that. Why use gas for 10 minutes if none is needed?

Afterwards, I dump the water (grandma used to let it cool and give it to plants) and replace it with cold water to cool them if I want some immediately, otherwise I just take them out and put them in the dishdrain to dry and cool before putting them in the fridge. I often leave them overnight, no particular reason, but as I said in another post we'd leave our Easter eggs out a few days before putting them in the fridge (and in that post I mentioned that you will KNOW if they go bad; yellowish, shriveling, then smell). They're pretty durable and long lasting, more so than people think.