How to Make Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs

Posted by Elise on Jul 19, 2007



How to Make Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs

I love hard boiled eggs. For years I ate one every morning until my doctor told me that you shouldn't eat the same food every single day. So now I eat them only a couple of times a week. Sometimes with a little salt, usually without. Used to be that people were scared of eating eggs because of the cholesterol in the egg yolks. Now research has found that eggs also raise the good cholesterol that bodies need. When it comes to boiling eggs, the biggest problem is that people can easily over-cook them, leading to a dark green color around the yolk, and a somewhat sulphuric taste. Here's a my method for cooking hard boiled eggs so that they don't get over-cooked:

Method

First make sure that you are using eggs that are several days old. If this is Easter time, and everyone is buying their eggs at the last minute, buy your eggs 5 days in advance of boiling. (See the reference to using old eggs in Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking). Hard boiling farm fresh eggs will invariably lead to eggs that are difficult to peel. If you have boiled a batch that are difficult to peel, try putting them in the refrigerator for a few days; they should be easier to peel then.

Put the eggs in a single layer in a saucepan, covered by at least an inch or two of cold water. Starting with cold water and gently bringing the eggs to a boil will help keep them from cracking. Adding a tablespoon of vinegar to the water will help keep the egg whites from running out of any eggs that happen to crack while cooking, but some people find that the vinegar affects the taste. I don't have a problem with it and I usually add a little vinegar. Adding a half teaspoon of salt is thought to help both with the preventing of cracking and making the eggs easier to peel. Put the burner on high and bring the eggs to a boil. As soon as the water starts to boil, remove the pan from the heat for a few seconds.

3 Reduce the heat to low, return the pan to the burner. Let simmer for one minute. (Note I usually skip this step because I don't notice the eggs boiling until they've been boiling for at least a minute! Also, if you are using an electric stove with a coil element, you can just turn off the heat. There is enough residual heat in the coil to keep the eggs simmering for a minute.)

After a minute, remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let sit for 12 minutes. If you are doing a large batch of eggs, after 10 minutes you can check for doneness by sacrificing one egg, removing it with a slotted spoon, running it under cold water, and cutting it open. If it isn't done, cook the other eggs a minute or two longer. The eggs should be done perfectly at 10 minutes, but sometimes, depending on the shape of the pan, the size of the eggs, the number of eggs compared to the amount of water, and how cooked you like them, it can take a few minutes more. When you find the right time that works for you given your pan, the size of eggs you usually buy, the type of stove top you have, stick with it.

I also find that it is very hard to overcook eggs using this method. I can let the eggs sit, covered, for up to 15-20 minutes without the eggs getting overcooked.

Either remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place them into a bowl of ice water (this is if you have a lot of eggs) OR strain out the water from the pan, fill the pan with cold water, strain again, fill again, until the eggs cool down a bit. Once cooled, strain the water from the eggs. Store the eggs in a covered container (eggs can release odors) in the refrigerator. They should be eaten within 5 days.

Thank you for the cooking lesson but I will continue to do mine the way I have for years with no problems.

ok and i will mine also~~ thanks~

A Hard-boiled Look at Easter Egg Safety

Last Updated: April 10, 2009 Related resource areas: Parenting

Choose carefully whether anyone will eat the decorated Easter eggs.

Released April 10, 2009

MURFREESBORO, Ark. - For many people, Easter is a time to decorate eggs for the egg hunt. If your children plan to eat the eggs later, there are a few food safety tips to remember, says Robbie McKinnon, Pike County extension agent with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.

"Every time an egg is handled, there's an increase in the chance for contamination by bacteria," she says. "Wash your hands thoroughly before handling any eggs and at every step of the process, including cooking, cooling, and dyeing. Wash all utensils, equipment and work areas that come in contact with raw eggs in hot, soapy water."

At the store, choose refrigerated Grade A or AA eggs with clean, un-cracked shells. Take the eggs straight home and store them immediately in the refrigerator, McKinnon advises.

If dying eggs, hard cook the eggs first by boiling at 160 degrees for 15 minutes. While salmonella is destroyed when hard-cooked eggs are properly prepared, these eggs can spoil more quickly than raw eggs. After cooking, cool hard-cooked eggs quickly under running cold water or in ice water and refrigerate immediately.

"After dyeing the eggs, return them to the refrigerator," she says. "If eggs are to be eaten, use a food-safe coloring. As with all foods, persons dyeing the eggs should wash their hands before handling the eggs."

It's important to remember that any dye used on eggs to be eaten should be warmer than the egg itself. Otherwise, the food coloring will have permeated the shell through osmosis. Bacteria can be carried along as well.

Hard-cooked eggs for an egg hunt must be prepared with care to prevent cracking the shells, according to McKinnon. If the shells crack, bacteria can contaminate the inside. Eggs should be hidden in places that are protected from dirt, pets and other sources of bacteria or lawn chemicals.

The total time for hiding and hunting eggs (time out of refrigeration) should not exceed two hours. The "found" eggs must be put back into the refrigerator to store until eaten. If any eggs crack while dyeing or while hiding, discard them along with any eggs that have been out of refrigeration for more than two hours.

"To be safe, hide plastic Easter eggs and make deviled eggs for the Easter lunch and dinner," McKinnon says. "As a child, my brothers and I enjoyed our play with our dyed eggs. It was a practice at our home, that we NEVER, EVER ate dyed Easter eggs. Of course, that was a decision that my mother enforced because we played with our eggs for days."

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http://www.uaex.edu/news/april2009/0410hard_boiled.htm

most time kids don't eat the dyed eggs they rather hide them and play with them` they rather eat the candy LOL