Six or so minutes (maybe up to 8) for soft-boiled. Hardboiled is, like you say, about 12 minutes.
Wait. What? I’m gonna need a cite for that.
I’m sure he was talking about dissolved oxygen. When you heat water, you will see bubbles form on the bottom of the pot and then disappear before the water comes to a boil. These bubbles are gases coming out of solution. These gases came from the air, which is about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gases. Nitrogen isn’t very soluble in water, so the dissolved gases in tap water are mostly oxygen. If you boil water a second time the oxygen will have already been driven out of solution.
I didn’t see this mentioned: one myth is that a cook should sear meat before cooking to “lock in the juices”. This was based on a French cook/scientist from (IIRC) ~1900. Recent research has shown that it does no such thing. There are situations for searing first but moistness is not one of them.
Yes, the reason for searing is for browning and flavor (see: Maillard reaction).
The Master Speaks:
also on that note- salt.
Let us take "sea salt: there’s two kinds- regular and “grey” aka Fleur de sel . Regular is just table salt, but usually not iodized. It is chemically identical to salt- it’s just NaCl. Fleur de sel has more minerals than common table salt, it’s not refined, it’s very expensive and it tastes a little different.
Kosher salt is NaCl, pure. Usually not iodized, but it can be. It’s not called “kosher” as it is “kosher”( altho it is), but as it’s used for “koshering” meats. The taste is identical but the* texture* is quite different. Sprinkled on foods it can add something- when used for cooking like in a soup- it’s just table salt.
Neither is more healthy. In fact, *Fleur de sel *must be watched carefully for contaminants.
NM
Another important difference between table salt and kosher salt is in measurement. Because of the difference in particle shapes, kosher salt doesn’t pack quite as densely as table salt. According to the Morton Salt company, two cups of table salt is equivalent to two and a half cups of kosher salt.
I hope I remember to try this. I love egg salad but I never make it because my eggs always tear to bits when I try to get the shell off.
Good point. Still, that’s due to the texture.
Best way to get the shell off is to roll the egg on the counter, pressing down so it cracks as you do it. It then peels very easily.
Right, but the myth part was searing before cooking (usually roasting) instead of after. The Maillard reaction will occur just as happily after cooking.
Sure, before or after, same reason. When making a stew or pot roast, you do it before for obvious reasons (you’re throwing the meat into a liquid which will prevent browning unless some surface area is exposed.) And, sometimes, you don’t want to brown in order to keep the dish more “delicate.”
And if you’re really worried about contaminants, you can use chemical-free, non-GMO salt. :rolleyes: Why, it’s even organic!
As long as we’re talking about both hard boiled eggs and the Maillard reaction, did you know you can ‘brown’ the whites of your hard boiled eggs? By cooking the eggs for a long time, the proteins in the white will go through the Maillard reaction and become brown. The flavor is a bit more savory than a normal white would be. You can see an example of this in hamine-style eggs sometimes served in noodle soups.
I make ‘browned’ boiled eggs for my dog by cooking them in my pressure cooker for 45 minutes. She has some appetite issues and she seems to prefer the taste of the browned whites. I’ve tried them and I like the taste better as well. The shells come right off, which I’m guessing may have something to do with being in the pressure cooker. You can also do it in a normal pot, but I think you need to carefully watch the water temperature.
Likely trans-fat and gluten-free also!
But of course, that salt* cant* be chemical-free as then the box would be mostly empty as salt is a chemical.:rolleyes:
It becomes important if you’re making a recipe with a measured amount of salt. When making dill pickles, for instance, it’s necessary to get the concentration of salt right for the pickles to ferment properly. If you use kosher salt instead of canning salt you could get poor results.
I see that the need for de-chlorinating the water has already been addressed.
But I wonder if the reason for giving you goldfish was not, per se “to make a child happy,” but to test his ability to care for a more complex creature, such as a puppy.
Did your folks ever give you a puppy for your very own?
Oh, and a culinary debunking I got from Ira Flatow (host of Science Friday on NPR): tearing the lettuce for your salad by hand is not strictly necessary; chopping lettuce for you salad with a knife it perfectly acceptable.
I can imagine why the boiled water boils faster the second time thing got started. Somebody filled a big kettle of water and boiled it for morning tea. She boiled it again for noon, afternoon, and evening tea, and each time it came to a boil faster than the previous time.
The kettle boils faster the second time because there is less water in it. Over time, the “because there is less water in it” got dropped.
I’ve tried just about everything for an easy to peel hard boiled egg. Old, new, different cooking times, adding baking soda, etc. What I’ve found works most consistently is to just peel them under water. Sometimes I might bring them to a boil, turn off the heat and let them sit awhile. Other times I might just boil them straight through until their definitely done, and then rinse cold water in. Either way, just grab and egg, tap it on the counter, roll it around a bit, then dunk it back in the water and peel. Redunk and/or dip your fingers in the water as needed. The water helps the shell peel off easier. Trying to peel a dryer tacky egg shell is more likely to stick to the white. If you need the eggs to be dry, just let them air dry on a paper towel a little bit.
Nothing I’ve found yet is 100% guaranteed though.
I have a steamer but I don’t bring it out that often, and putting a steamer basket over an inch of water risks my spacing out and coming back to a burning pan.
I’ve also taken to boiling my pasta in a shallow wide frying pan in less water, but didn’t know about putting the pasta in cold starting water. I’ll have to try that.