How to be a bachelor : Cooking : Two ways to boil eggs

A boiled egg is a perfect emergency meal, a handy addition to salads, and something a bachelor should keep on hand. Ignore those who talk about cholesterol.

How to make a large pot of boiled eggs

There are 1000 ways to make boiled eggs and most of them work good enough. The ones I'm interested in are the ones that work good enough and are easy to do.

After a lot of research and investigation online, I ended up with a way to make a large pot of boiled eggs which, as long as I put on a timer, takes very little work and always turns out nice. It's very easy and so instructions won't be complicated. To start with, you fill your pot with a single layer of eggs. Cover the eggs with cold water. My pot holds 10 eggs when they're dry but 11 when they are wet.

Bring to a rapid boil.

This is the part that absolutely needs a timer. Set your timer for 20 minutes and take the pot off the stove and put a lid on it. 20 minutes might be too long, but it's a good place to start. When the time is up, rinse in very cold water. This sets the shape and avoids the "bubble" that hard boiled eggs can get.

This should be all. One general tip is to use less fresh eggs. This allows air to permeate between the shell and the liner membrane and supposedly makes for easier peeling. I dont know if that's true, but it seems to work for me. One thing to watch is the infamous "Green Ring" which means you cooked them too long. It's a layer of darkened yolk that shows up as a distinct ring when you cut them in half. These don't have any noticeable ring at 18 minutes.

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How to quickly boil a couple of eggs

When I make a large pot of eggs it's to keep some in the fridge for when I make salads or something. But every now and then I like a soft boiled egg, or I run out and want to quickly boil a couple of eggs without having to spend 20+ minutes doing it.

This method works great for that. You have to pretty much stand over them, but you can do that while cooking something else.

Start with a quarter to a half inch of cold water in a small lidded pan. I use a small frying pan. The goal here is to make and contain boiling hot steam in the pan, so that the eggs cook evenly at a high temperature. When I first learned this I was told to bring the water up to temperature first and put the eggs in with a spoon, and that might be a good idea, but for me the water gets hot in a couple of seconds, so I don't think it matters that much.

What does matter is moving the eggs around at first. The bottom of the pan can get too hot and crack your egg if you don't watch out. Later, it doesn't hurt to roll the egg once or twice, but it's really not necessary.

Once the water reaches boiling, lower the heat to a bare simmer and cook them for however soft you want your eggs. Here are some general ranges but experiment for yourself.

7 minutes makes a nice soft boiled egg
10 minutes is a normal boiled egg
12 or more for those who like very dry boiled yolks.

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All images from pixabay or my camera unless otherwise noted.

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