Seriously. My Blessed Granny would bring the water to a boil, carefully put the eggs in, then boil them for an indeterminate length of time - depending on what was on TV, and how many Martinis she’d had. The eggs would always crack and leak, and they’d be all rubbery and farty-tasting when she made egg-salad sandwiches.
My mum never boiled a single egg that I can recall.
I just asked my wife. Here’s the exchange…
Me: Honey? How do you hard-boil eggs? Her: WHAT?!? Me: Um. Ahem. How do you hard-boil eggs? Her: Oh. Sorry. I though you said ‘Why didn’t you hard-boil the eggs?’ (My wife often speaks in Italics) Me: Huh? Her: What?!? Me: What? Her: Huh? Me: How do you hard-boil eggs? Her: You just put them in the water and boil them! Me: Yes, but for how long? Her: What?!? I don’t know!! (See!?) Me: Never mind.
You get the idea. So how do I accomplish this seemingly simple task? I tried to google it, but in the Cooking Community it seems to be assumed that everyone knows how to boil a damned egg.
I put the egg in cold water. Turn the stove on hight until the water boils. Then turn it down to a simmer and cover. Simmer for about 5 minutes for a soft boiled egg and about 12 for a hard boiled egg.
If you’re doing more than a few at once, say if you’re making a batch of deviled eggs or egg salad, then I usually boil them a bit longer. About 20 minutes. And the higher the boil, the more they seem to crack–not a problem for egg salad, but not that ideal for easter eggs.
I put the eggs in just enough cold water to cover them a little, put 'em on the stove over medium-high heat and then wait for the water to boil. Once that happens, I cover the pot and turn off the heat. The eggs will cook to hard-boiled in about 15 minutes this way, but I usually just let them cool on the stove and then either peel 'em or put them in the fridge, depending on what I am going to use them for.
I put the egg in cold water, bring it to a boil, leave it boiling for 5 - 10 minutes, then turn the heat off. I then leave the egg in the pot until the water is cool enough for me to put my hand in to take the egg out.
Oh, I meant to add my favorite boiled-egg trick. Throw some dry onion skins into the water. It doesn’t affect the taste at all, but it makes the shells a nice golden color so that you can easily tell them apart from the raw eggs in your fridge.
Drat. I forgot to mention that the reason I boil my eggs the way I do is to avoid cracking the shells - if they get too much of a chance to bounce around (by adding too much water or letting them boil too long/too vigorously) you increase the chance of cracking.
Apparently, if you take them out right at the end of cooking and plunge them into cold water, this prevents the outside of the yolk from turning that greenish-grey colour (although I’ve never really bothered to test this empirically).
Put the cold eggs in cold water, bring to boiling over about 5-10 minutes (trying to avoid sharp temp changes to let the eggs warm up), then boil for about 8 to 15 minutes, depending on desired done-ness. Overcooked boiled eggs have a grey ring on the yolks. If they are coming out grey you can reduce the boiling time a little. Always do a few extra for later, too. Noone wants one until you make them, then they want yours.
Now my question- why are some eggs easily peelable and some not?
Put some salt in the boiling water. That way if a shell cracks, the white coagulates faster and seals off the opening and you lose less egg.
Otherwise I do it like romansperson does. Except that I run cold water into the pot after 15 minutes, to stop the cooking process and keep the yolks from turning green.
This is funny. I just hard-boiled eggs for the first time last week. I was testing out my new pasta pot (yes, the thing you see advertised in DR spots on TV). Hadda call mom to find out how long I should boil the eggs.
Update! I brought the water to a boil, then simmered for about 10 minutes, now they’re sitting in the water as it cools. I’ll take them out in another 6 minutes, (total 10 minutes sitting) and let you know how they turned out around 12:30.
Usually I start by boiling the water, then add the eggs by spooning them in (rather than dropping them in) - less chance of cracking.
For runny yolk boil for 3-4 minutes.
For soft yolks boil for 5 minutes.
For mostly soft but not runny boil for 6 minutes.
For completely dead yolks boil for 10 minutes.
If you knock them at both ends peeling will be easier as it allows air in under the shell.
