I’m planning to make a bunch of egg-salad sandwiches, which seems pretty easy – chopped-up hard boiled eggs, mayo, salt & pepper, and bread. The tough part is boiling the egg. How do you properly hard-boil an egg?
Keep in mind I’m a perma-bachelor who gets confused reading microwave directions, so keep it simple please. 
Two important things I learned. Put the eggs in cold water, so they don’t bounce around in boiling water and crack.
After they cook, run cold water into the pot and crack them. The shells and egg will expand differently and make them very easy to peel.
Use real mayonaise, not (yuck) Miracle Whip.
I use a little Curry in deviled eggs, might go well in egg salad.
Put eggs in cold water. Older eggs are best, as really fresh eggs are hard to peel.
Put cold water with eggs on the stove.
Bring to a boil.
Turn burner off, take eggs off heat.
Wait 10 minutes.
Cool, peel, chop, enjoy.
That’s the way I make 'em, anyway.
I do the same, only to seventeen minutes, followed by rinsing in cold water.
This is the Cook’s Illustrated method, and it really does work.
Piece of cake.
I use an Egg-Rite timer…a red, egg-shaped liquid crystal thingy that turns black when the eggs are done. It has never failed me. Couple of bucks at Bed, Bath and Beyond and other similar stores. I originally got it when I lived in Colorado, where the altitude will mess up the wonderfully precise times given above. But it works at any elevation, with any number of eggs, and can be used for soft-boling at well.
Use a pin to poke a hole in the eggs’ shells. Boil some water, then gently place the eggs in the boiling water. Reduce the heat to medium and let the eggs cook for 15 minutes. Then put the eggs in cold water to stop them cooking further (prevents the dark ring around the yolk).
Make sure it’s not the pointed end.
I second the egg timer crystal thingy. Cervaise’s technique is good, but forget about watching the clock and let the miracle of the crystal thingy work for you. Also, I’m not sure if ice water is really necessary if your regular cold water from the tap is decently cold.
Here is a thread I started asking for help on boiling eggs that are easy to peel.
Awfully hard to poke a hole with the non-pointed end of a pin, pal!
Salt in the water is supposed to help release the shell from the egg. I don’t know why this is.
I usually boil nine extra-large eggs at a time; they fit nicely, with no room to roll around, on the bottom of a medium-sized pot I have, add cold water so eggs are coverd by an inch and put the pot on the stove. I turn the burner to high and let them cook for about 13 minutes. This results in yolks with moist centers, which I like.
After turning off the stove I put the pot of eggs under cold running water to replace all the boiling water with cold and let them sit till cool, changing the water once or twice as it warms. I crack, tear off a piece of shell and membrane, and dunk three eggs for peeling and refrigerate the others for later.
Use a very tiny hammer to assist.
Thanks for all the advice guys…I had no idea it was so complicated!!!
In fact, before posting here I asked my mother, and she gave the same procedure as Cervaise did – but it sounded so bizarre, and knowing how her cooking usually turns out, I filed it away with all her pro-creationism arguments and stuff like that. Kinda surprising that it actually works. 
Also, I was just going to ask about old vs. new eggs, so thanks for that as well.
(Curry…that’s like a spice, or something?)