From Erik's Kitchen: Hard-cooked Eggs

I thought for this rendition of cooking and recipes, I'd go with something basic: cooking an egg.  I think a perfectly cooked egg is delicious, while one even slightly under- or over-done is possibly one of the worst things a person can eat while it's still classified as "food."


So here's a few techniques I picked up to get great eggs every time.  Granted, your cooking times may vary depending on your cooking utensil, but once you tweak it a bit, you'll get it to work.



Now, there are two important things I learned a while ago about making hard-cooked eggs.  The first is that boiling them might be, in my mind, one of the worst ways to possibly cook an egg consistently, and yet it's the way I was doing it for a really long time.

Now, to be fair, it's not boiling's fault.  It's probably one of the best ways to get heat into food, but when water comes into direct contact with food, it gets difficult.  I once cooked perfect chicken breasts by putting each two in separate vacuum-sealed bags, bringing the water to a boil, and putting the bags directly in the water.  They might not have had a crust from a pan or grill, but since I was going to chop them up anyway, it worked just fine and kept them moist.

But when I think of a lot of boiled foods, I think "bland," which lowers expectations.  Plus it's hard to control the temperature of the water, and the water can take a while to heat.

One source I read recommended boiling them in an electric kettle.  It shuts off as soon as the water reaches a boil, so if you have eggs in it and fill it just an inch or so over the eggs and let them sit for about twelve (plus or minus two) minutes, you'll have great eggs every time because you can control the temperature equally every time.

I don't have an electric kettle.  Yet.

A lot of sources recommended baking them.  Putting them directly on the rack and letting them sit for about a half hour is fine if you're doing a lot of eggs, but for just a work week's supply, it's a lot of effort.  I suppose you could, presumably, put them on a grill, but again, it's hard to keep a consistent temperature.

So, how do I currently cook eggs?  I steam them.  I inherited this nifty little foldable metal basket insert that fits in just about any pot.  It has three legs on the bottom, and it sort-of opens and closes like, well, like a flower opening and closing.  Put an inch of water in the bottom of a pot, put the rack in, bring the water to boil.  Once it's boiling (don't worry, you can get a lot of steam out of an inch of water), put the eggs in the basket, cover, lower the heat to a little over medium (on my stove, anyway).  Cook about twelve minutes (give or take a few depending on the consistency you like), turn off heat.

Now, here's the second thing I learned: as soon as those eggs are done cooking, remove them from whatever heat source you have and put them in an ice water bath.  Eggs trap heat behind those shells, and they'll keep cooking if you don't stop them.

So these days I get almost perfect eggs almost every time I cook them (sometimes I have to do batches, but I can get up to eight eggs in that basket if I'm clever about positioning them).  A little salt to help it taste more like an egg (because that's what salt does if you don't bury it in the stuff), and it's the perfect portable breakfast treat.

Now, some people say you don't really need to refrigerate eggs as often as people do because shells are "designed to keep out bad stuff," but I'm not ready to sign off on that thinking just yet, so I'd still try to eat it while it's cold and not after it was bouncing in your pocket all day.