How to Boil the Perfect Hard Cooked Easy Peel Egg

By JULIE - 10:41:00 AM

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I'm currently reading the Paleo cookbook "Well Fed," by Melissa Joulwan and she gave me some great ideals on cooking more efficiently that has me so excited.  I'll right some more extensive posts on this soon,  but basically she cooks base proteins and freezer friendly veggies for the week and freezes them.  She then uses these already prepped ingredients to through together meals.  One of the things she makes ahead is hard boiled eggs.  Reading that made me start to think of hard boiled eggs and egg salad sandwiches (mainly bacon jalapeño egg salad recipe to come).
So I decided to make hard boiled eggs today, since I have a lot due to all the great Easter egg sales everywhere. The only thing is I couldn't remember the perfect way to hard boil an egg, since I haven't for awhile.  I know there is a better way then the green tinted yolks.  So what causes that in the first place?  Well according to, Cooking Light " The cause is temperature differential: The white of an egg dropped into boiling water cooks much faster than the yolk at the center, and that’s trouble. By the time the yolk sets, the white is tough. And if the egg stays over high heat too long, or isn’t cooled quickly after cooking, sulfur in the white will react with iron in the yolk, creating that nasty off-colored ring."

The keys to a perfectly cooked hard boiled egg is to gently cook the eggs and to add baking soda and salt to the water while cooking.  According to Fine Cooking, "One of the changes that happens to an egg over time is that it goes from being acidic to being alkaline. One effect of this is turning your blueberries into greenberries in baked goods. Another is to cause the albumen in the egg whites to stick to each other more than they stick to the egg shell.  So, you can naturally let the egg age, or you can put a little baking soda into the cooking water. I use about a teaspoon for a medium pot of water. The water passes through the shell and makes the egg less likely to stick to the shell, which makes it easier to peel. An older egg, and an egg treated this way, will have a slightly more sulfuric smell than the equivalent fresh egg. Not enough to bother me when I cook them, but that is a downside."

  1. fill pot with just enough cold water to cover eggs
  2. Add some salt and  1 tsp of baking soda and stir
  3. place eggs in cold water
  4. Bring eggs to a boil
  5. Boil for 1 min
  6. Remove from heat
  7. Cover the pot and wait 10-12 minutes
  8. Rinse in cold water
  9. Wait to peel until cooled


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