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06/21/2003 Archived Entry: "HARD-BOILED EGGS"

HARD-BOILED EGGS

I bet you've all been dying to know how to cook eggs to the hard-boil stage without them cracking and making a mess. Boiling fresh eggs so that you can peel them without tearing them apart is a challenge. Do your deviled eggs look more like scrambled eggs than they should? Voila! I have a solution for you that is fool-proof. And, guess what? I figured this out all by myself after years of trying to peel fresh country eggs that I'd hard-boiled.

Put a pan of water on to boil...make it large enough for the water to cover the eggs when you put them in.

Meanwhile, instead of watching the water boil, here's what you do. Get a needle-sharp ice pick and poke a hole in the large end of each egg. You have to be careful to go only through the shell and not beyond that. It's pretty easy to do if you hold the egg firmly in one hand, with the big part of the egg "up", and gently grind the sharp ice pick through the shell forcing a little hole for air to escape from inside the shell. If you are careful, the shell won't break.

After the water comes to a full boil, gently slide each egg off a slotted spoon into the bottom of the pan. You'll see the air escaping from those little holes you made so carefully assuring you that the shell won't break and leave you with a mess of eggs you have to eat yourself. If you poked the pick in too deep, you will see egg white oozing out of the hole.

For large eggs, set the timer for 20 minutes and let them gently boil.

When the timer dings, take the eggs off the stove and gently poor the boiling water off the eggs. Place the pan in the sink and let cold water fill the pan....change it frequently so that the eggs start to chill. Then you can put them in the refrigerator if you want to. After all the heat is out of the eggs, or before if you want to, you can crack and peel them, starting at the top where you poked the hole, and they will come out perfectly each time.

Isn't that slick?

I thought of this since I bought farm fresh eggs this morning that once posed a peeling problem for me until I figured out how to circumvent it...and I just boiled a dozen eggs to put in a mess of potato salad. I like a lot of eggs in my potato salad and Brit really likes my potato salad. He's easy to cook for...he likes anything I fix for him, almost. AHA....I might throw in some of that pickle relish for extra measure.