First of all, in case you're wondering, I'm a Rolling Stones guy, not a Beatles guy (one of my favorite, "there are two kinds of people in the world" questions). This quick video tutorial shows my method for making perfect hard boiled eggs.I shouldn't really say "my" method since I'm sure I learned it from some chef decades ago, probably in a hotel somewhere, but regardless, it has served me well, and works every time.
Easter is rapidly approaching, and if you're going to be boiling eggs to decorate, why not make them so the insides are just as beautiful? Even if you don't plan on expressing your creativity with dyed eggshells, summer will be here before you know it, and everyone knows the secret to a great potato salad is perfectly cooked eggs.Some of you may wonder about peeling the eggs, which I didn't bother to film. I simply peel under gently running water. If you have a great trick for peeling eggs please feel free to share with the rest of us. Enjoy!
Chef John Needs Your Vote!
Have you heard? Food Wishes has been nominated in the video category for the Saveur Magazine 1st Annual Best Food Blog Awards! Help us turn the honor of being nominated into the reality of a glorious win! Please follow this link to cast your vote now. Thanks!
UPDATE: Thanks to a tip from a commenter, I present this video from Tim Ferriss on how to peel an egg without peeling it, using baking soda. Please, someone try this and report back!
46 comments:
Good info - thanks.
I recently bought a little gadget that pierces one end of the egg with a tiny hole. This has worked every time - to my amazement - and not one egg shell has cracked during the cooking since I began doing this. It also seems to make the peeling process so much easier!
Theres another method by spinning an egg on its bottom. It should spin for about 5 seconds without falling. The reason is because the yolk is centered and set, if it wasn't cooked it would wobble around and fall.
Hi chef John. Is it even possible to screw up a hard boiled egg? I mean hard boiled eggs have to be the easiest thing to cook!
Yes, but most just boil the whole way, and this is a gentler method I think, and give me great results.
I love pickled eggs, have peeled thousands of them. In doing so I adopted this technique:
1. Gently tap the wide end, continuing in a line along the length of the egg to the narrow end.
2. Gently roll the egg between your palm and a towel placed on your counter top, back and forth, until the whole shell is finely cracked but still stuck to the egg. Don't press too hard or you'll split the egg.
3. Peel - and rinse if needed. With a little practice you should be able to remove the entire shell in one or two pieces, without needing water.
I love that you did a video for boiling eggs. I have to show my sister - she can't boil water! On a side note, did you see the eggs series we did last year - http://www.chezus.com/2009/05/27/the-incredible-edible-hard-boiled-egg-how-to-hard-boil-an-egg/ .... the best egg salad!
The method I use is to put the eggs in the pan using the same amount of water that you do, bring the pot to a boil and leave it boiling for eight minutes. Then drain and cool as you do. No discolored yolks this way, either.
Wah, watching this clip makes me realize that I haven't even been able to boil an egg! WT?!
Green-tinged yolks has always been my specialty.
There's a million recipes online for perfect boiled eggs, but I like this guy's methodical approach best:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/10/the-food-lab-science-of-how-to-cook-perfect-boiled-eggs.html
Conclusion is that the duration for boiling eggs depends on a lot of variables so its almost impossible to give an exact recipe that works perfectly for everyone. Then again, cooking is more of an art form than an exact science...
Hey chef John, take a look at this video. The guy says to boil with some baking soda then you can peel the egg without actually peeling the shell! I gotta try this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2gYHJNT3Y
Love it! As someone who new to this game and has not yet mastered perfect hard boiled eggs, thank you for posting. Chef John's tips and various methods for doing things are probably my favorite postings on Food Wishes.
I hard boil eggs pretty much exactly as you do. Many people say to leave them sit for 10 minutes in the hot water. I always go 15 to 20 minutes at my home which is almost at 3000 feet elevation. I would have thought SF would be fewer minutes because it is at sea level but it looks like I was so wrong.
Anyway, I have added one step that seems to help a ton with the peeling. After I drain off the hot water, I swirl the eggs around the pan, cracking the eggs thoroughly. Then cool with the cold water. Then peel.
Jackie
Great video, Chef John! I can't believe I've been boiling eggs incorrectly all my life and nobody thought to tell me 'til now. Shows that I can learn a thing or two, even from someone in the Rolling Stones camp. :)
I hope nobody EVER makes me egg salad using that baking soda peeling method. Egg salad with spit, ewwww!
Chef John, I LOVE your blog! I discovered it last week on youtube while investigating no-knead breads. I'm a cook/demonstrator in an up-scale grocery store and have recommended it to several customers and co-workers, and I noticed my daughter is now a follower (see thegutsygirl.com, her blog on crohn's disease and she posts recipes). I voted for your blog in the Saveur contest, and it definitely outshone the others. You write from a professional chef point of view, the videos are succinct and informational and they show me what I need to know and don't waste my time--okay, I guess that's what succinct means. I like it that you're not a standup comedian, like "Mr. Bam" on a certain food tv show.
Your introductions prior to the recipes give me insight I could use as an accomplished home cook and foodie, and that same info is helpful to novices, too. Incidentally, I made the no-knead ciabatta bread and it turned out great! Kudos, Alicia
so do times change for different amounts of eggs? how about a dozen.. still 17 mins?
yes, same for a dozen
Huge fan of soft boiled eggs. Tips for perfecting those buggers?
A tip to keep in mind as well, is that fresh eggs will not peel well.
So if you know you are going to be using boiled eggs for something, buy your eggs about a week ahead of time.
You've GOT to be kidding.
I just tried the boiling with baking soda, and it TOTALLY worked. I'm gobsmacked.
Basically the shell cracks very easily into fine shards, and the egg comes right out. Your conventional under the water technique worked phenominally easily after the soda-boil, too. The spit thing bothered me, if I'm honest, so I tried just using a thumb to push it out. If you push from the small end (didn't work from the wide end) it comes RIGHT OUT leaving a tube of egg shell.
Game-changer....thanks!
Hi, Chef John. i tried your method this morning, and my mom said that the eggs are better than those we previously made. we are chinese and we usually boil the eggs thoroughout the whole process, but this really workes. thank you for sharing the method. im looking foward the new cooking book.
Jie
The peeling video looks good except for the spit all over the egg!
OK, time to play Mr Stick-in-the-mud!!! Since these eggs never really reach the boiling point, wouldn't it still be possible for cooties like salmonella to survive? Chef, comment???
on the VERY rare chance you have salmonella-laced eggs, it's killed way below boiling - like 130-140 degrees.
Hey Chef(s).
Does anyone have any tips for cooking a slightly more runnier version? My entire family likes the yolk a bit more runnier than this version.
not sure, but I'm sure there are time charts online for softer boiled eggs
Chef,
How about an egg salad recipe done in your patented "lite/healthy" spins? Have you seen the Best Thing I Ever Ate - Chilled Perfection episode? Adam Gertler does a feature on the egg salad sandwich from Euro Pane. Looks delicious! It'll re-air tomorrow night if you want to set your DVR.
Wouldn't it be easier to just move to sea level? ;-)
Well, I have to say I had never been a big fan of hard boiled eggs until I tried this technique.
First time around I screwed it up cause I turned the heat down way too soon (didn't wait for them to start dancing). I don't know if the fact that they were cold straight out of the fridge was also a problem. So I just had to fry those and they were delicious.
But on my second try I left the heat on for a little longer and I have to say, they were the most delicious hard boiled eggs I've ever had. Cooking is just amazing, you can go from something that's just OK to something heavenly depending on how you do things.
Thank you for sharing this!
Boiling an egg is a hard thing to do, as for me. I always fail on that task in the kitchen.
I add salt to the water, it makes the shells come right off without any fuss.
Thanks so much to danijel for the link to the serious eats page. I tried this method (at sea level) and came up with my whites still runny. Since I had just peeled a little edge to see the problem I was able to put the eggs in fresh water and finish cooking them by my old method (albeit with some amazing white foam to skim off.)
I had no idea what might have gone wrong but the serious eats page says that the amount of water makes a huge difference in how fast the temp of the water drops with 1.5 quarts of water being optimal. I used a one quart pan filled half way since I was only boiling two eggs. That must be it. Way too little water.
I get beautiful hard-cooked (not boiled) eggs by putting them in cold water, setting the timer for 17 minutes, bringing them to just under a boil, then monitoring the water to keep them just simmering. While this works great it requires attention. I'll try this experiment again with more water.
I've noticed that the main thing that seems to make hard-boiled eggs easy to peel is not overcooking them. Ever since I adopted a similar method of heat-and-rest, I've had no peeling problems, whether the eggs were super-fresh or not, right out of the fridge or not,and even without using running water!
This did not work for me and I followed all the directions to a "T".
It didn't work for me either I got runny eggs.
@Chef John:
I love those eggs but my mother likes her yolk so she can dip her toas in it.
Any good tip how to make the perfect egg with firm white but creamy to runny yolk?
The Easiest way to peel a hard boiled egg is wait till your water is at a full boil. THEN gentley put the eggs in the pot. They peel like butter!!!
For as long as I can remember, I've had an impossible time peeling hard-boiled eggs, not matter how hard I tried.
Recently, by accident, I discovered something interesting. I usually use cheap supermarket eggs for hard boiling and better farmers market eggs for poaching, frying, etc.
One time I didn't have very many supermarket eggs left, so I threw some farmer's market eggs into the pot. Keep in mind, these eggs were all cooked for the exact same time in the exact same pot. When I went to peel them, the supermarket eggs were annoyingly difficult to peel, as usual, but the farmers market eggs popped right out!
Not only that, but the supermarket eggs seemed less "well done" than the farmers market eggs.
Here's my point... forget the salt water tricks, the ice shock tricks, etc. The type of egg you use seems to be the most important variable. I hope someone can shed more light on this, because I feel like I've only begun to scratch the surface of this question.
I just tired the boiling eggs method for the first time and for the most part it works, I think I should have waited just another minute. But it works.
Clicked both of your email links...neither are active. I have a food wish for a lol... "sexy" egg salad sandwich! A fun bread maybe?...different spices or prep?
I just tried this in Albuquerque NM. Had to leave at for 20 minutes instead of 17. Wondering if it had anything to do with our boiling point being 203 instead of 212 so my simmered water is not quite as hot?
I just tried pressure cooker boiled eggs. Wow! 7 minutes on low pressure, natural release. Perfect peeling. Perfectly cooked. Just under hard.
And guess what else? I used the pressed board egg carton to sit the eggs in. Added 1 cup water. Fit in 10 large eggs. 7 minutes low pressure and voila!
We have a small ranch in North TEXAS. We raise chickens and lots of HELL! So I discovered eggs directly out of the factory are too fresh to boil for deviled eggs. Every Cotten picking egg shell stuck. Starting over.......don't have many older eggs. Thanks for turning on my inner chef! I have always cooked but you have opened my eyes to many new things. I can now bake bread without fear.
Mangia pane,
Dr. Mike (aka the sicillian stallion)
@Rob Pitingolo: I think you are right about the type of eggs making a difference. The cheap mass-produced supermarket eggs are noticeably inferior quality in many ways as compared with, for example, organic eggs or farmer's market eggs. The chicken's diet and such does affect the quality of the eggs. The organic eggs have a thicker shell and much darker yellow color yolk, whereas the cheap and poor quality supermarket eggs have a paler yellow yolk (due to poorer nutritional content) and thinner shell. The eggs with the thinner shell cook poorly and break open easily during cooking. I prefer to use better quality eggs for soft or hard boiling because the egg quality affects how well the soft-boiled or hard-boiled eggs turn out.
I love eggs and eat them often and have cooked so many soft and hard-boiled eggs. I'm always looking for tips or better cooking methods to achieve the results I want and I did see the Serious Eats in-depth egg discussion on the timing for solidification of yolks and whites. The size of the eggs matters as well. There are a lot of variables that effect the outcome for cooking eggs. Unfortunately there is no one perfect method because of that. I have gotten consistently better results by piercing the egg shell with a pin to help them slip out of their shells after cooking but have not tried this interesting baking soda method yet. The holy grail of soft-boiled egg cooking that I'm still searching for is how to get totally cooked whites while having the yolk remain mostly runny. It is tricky to control the cooking temperature precisely :(
@Lester Barrett: if you pierce the eggs with a pin on one end they will not crack open during cooking, even if you just took them from the refrigerator. Also I got a small wire metal basket (the basket is really meant to be used as a steamer basket) for cooking eggs so that they can all be gently lowered into the cooking pot at once without risking they will bump the bottom and crack their shell. Every second counts when cooking eggs and the ones put into the pot last will be under-cooked (for soft boiled eggs) if you put them in one at a time and if you cook them until the time for perfect done-ness then the first ones into the pot would have over-done yolks that are too solidified. I got the basket to avoid this issue.
@Lester Barrett: Also with the pin-piercing method it allows a bit of water to enter the shell during cooking, between the shell and egg membrane. That helps the eggs peel easily right out of the shell if you are peeling them after cooking, though after they cooled in the fridge some of them will still give trouble releasing from the shell, even with pin piercing. It helps to gently crack the shell all over and peel them under tap water from the faucet so that water can get inside the shell through the cracks. They will slip out of the shell more easily that way.
Post a Comment