Hard Boiled Eggs

[amweiner]

Hi friends,
While I was able to find plenty of recipes (period and modern) that include hard-boiled eggs as an ingredient, few of them mention the proper technique for a good hard-boiled egg. I considered this "recreated" as they boiled eggs during the 1860s, but I couldn't find a recipe and doubt it was that complex. My biggest complaint about hard-boiled eggs has always been that nasty gray slime around the yolk, which this recipe cures. They come out perfectly every time!

I've been reading more recipes these days that suggest adding some baking soda to the water to help make peeling easier, and either I'm not adding enough or it's just a trick to make me use up my baking soda. Either way, it doesn't make much of a difference for me.

Ingredients - as you might have discerned, eggs. Brown or white work equally well.

Directions:

1. Add eggs to a medium saucepan and add enough cold water to just cover the eggs. Make sure the eggs have room to move around.
2. Bring cold water to a boil on medium-high heat. While the water is heating, prepare a bowl of ice water. I like to keep this in the freezer while I'm cooking the eggs.
3. As soon as the eggs come to a boil, remove the saucepan from the heat and cover. Let them sit undisturbed for 8-10 minutes.
4. After 8-10 minutes, put the eggs in the ice water to stop the cooking process and to help with cracking the shells.
5. Peel and enjoy! No gray nastiness around your yolks!!

 

[donna]

Sounds like one for me to try. We like our eggs hard boiled.

One I use from my Granny is:

To cook eggs so that they will be firm all the way through and yet not tough or indigestible, put them in saucepan of boiling water, cover closely and place on the stove where the water will remain very hot, but not boil, and let stand for twenty minutes.

This works for me.

 

[Jimklag]

Hi friends,
While I was able to find plenty of recipes (period and modern) that include hard-boiled eggs as an ingredient, few of them mention the proper technique for a good hard-boiled egg. I considered this "recreated" as they boiled eggs during the 1860s, but I couldn't find a recipe and doubt it was that complex. My biggest complaint about hard-boiled eggs has always been that nasty gray slime around the yolk, which this recipe cures. They come out perfectly every time!

I've been reading more recipes these days that suggest adding some baking soda to the water to help make peeling easier, and either I'm not adding enough or it's just a trick to make me use up my baking soda. Either way, it doesn't make much of a difference for me.

Ingredients - as you might have discerned, eggs. Brown or white work equally well.

Directions:

1. Add eggs to a medium saucepan and add enough cold water to just cover the eggs. Make sure the eggs have room to move around.
2. Bring cold water to a boil on medium-high heat. While the water is heating, prepare a bowl of ice water. I like to keep this in the freezer while I'm cooking the eggs.
3. As soon as the eggs come to a boil, remove the saucepan from the heat and cover. Let them sit undisturbed for 8-10 minutes.
4. After 8-10 minutes, put the eggs in the ice water to stop the cooking process and to help with cracking the shells.
5. Peel and enjoy! No gray nastiness around your yolks!!

I do like hard boiled eggs even if they are great little methane genetators. My wife makes excellent deviled eggs.

 

[Anna Elizabeth Henry]

Hi friends,
While I was able to find plenty of recipes (period and modern) that include hard-boiled eggs as an ingredient, few of them mention the proper technique for a good hard-boiled egg. I considered this "recreated" as they boiled eggs during the 1860s, but I couldn't find a recipe and doubt it was that complex. My biggest complaint about hard-boiled eggs has always been that nasty gray slime around the yolk, which this recipe cures. They come out perfectly every time!

I've been reading more recipes these days that suggest adding some baking soda to the water to help make peeling easier, and either I'm not adding enough or it's just a trick to make me use up my baking soda. Either way, it doesn't make much of a difference for me.

Ingredients - as you might have discerned, eggs. Brown or white work equally well.

Directions:

1. Add eggs to a medium saucepan and add enough cold water to just cover the eggs. Make sure the eggs have room to move around.
2. Bring cold water to a boil on medium-high heat. While the water is heating, prepare a bowl of ice water. I like to keep this in the freezer while I'm cooking the eggs.
3. As soon as the eggs come to a boil, remove the saucepan from the heat and cover. Let them sit undisturbed for 8-10 minutes.
4. After 8-10 minutes, put the eggs in the ice water to stop the cooking process and to help with cracking the shells.
5. Peel and enjoy! No gray nastiness around your yolks!!

Great tips! I have heard about putting them in cold water afterwards to stop the cooking process, but never letting them sit covered for 8-10 minutes. I'll have to give this method a try next time I hard boil eggs.

Sounds like one for me to try. We like our eggs hard boiled.

One I use from my Granny is:

To cook eggs so that they will be firm all the way through and yet not tough or indigestible, put them in saucepan of boiling water, cover closely and place on the stove where the water will remain very hot, but not boil, and let stand for twenty minutes.

This works for me.

Also a very interesting method that I haven't heard of before. I'll give this way a try, too and compare!

 

[Anna Elizabeth Henry]

From Marion Harland's book Common Sense in the Household - 1873. Her methods are interesting as well, especially her criticism of the 'slovenly' cook She loves putting her two cents in throughout the book imbuing the recipes with all sorts of assertions of what she considers correct or proper.

 

[DaveBrt]

Hi friends,
While I was able to find plenty of recipes (period and modern) that include hard-boiled eggs as an ingredient, few of them mention the proper technique for a good hard-boiled egg. I considered this "recreated" as they boiled eggs during the 1860s, but I couldn't find a recipe and doubt it was that complex. My biggest complaint about hard-boiled eggs has always been that nasty gray slime around the yolk, which this recipe cures. They come out perfectly every time!

I've been reading more recipes these days that suggest adding some baking soda to the water to help make peeling easier, and either I'm not adding enough or it's just a trick to make me use up my baking soda. Either way, it doesn't make much of a difference for me.

Ingredients - as you might have discerned, eggs. Brown or white work equally well.

Directions:

1. Add eggs to a medium saucepan and add enough cold water to just cover the eggs. Make sure the eggs have room to move around.
2. Bring cold water to a boil on medium-high heat. While the water is heating, prepare a bowl of ice water. I like to keep this in the freezer while I'm cooking the eggs.
3. As soon as the eggs come to a boil, remove the saucepan from the heat and cover. Let them sit undisturbed for 8-10 minutes.
4. After 8-10 minutes, put the eggs in the ice water to stop the cooking process and to help with cracking the shells.
5. Peel and enjoy! No gray nastiness around your yolks!!

Read your Directions to my wife and the reply was "Of course. That's the method I've used for many years." So you get at least one in agreement.

 

[amweiner]

especially her criticism of the 'slovenly' cook

I can't stand slovenly cooks....

 

[amweiner]

Read your Directions to my wife and the reply was "Of course. That's the method I've used for many years." So you get at least one in agreement.

That's awesome!! People know....

 

[Anna Elizabeth Henry]

I can't stand slovenly cooks....

Sadly, I've been known to be the slovenly cook by depositing my eggs in with - gasp - my fingers!!!

 

[amweiner]

Sadly, I've been known to be the slovenly cook by depositing my eggs in with - gasp - my fingers!!!

@Anna Elizabeth Henry, I declare!! I may swoon at work, which is frowned upon here.

 

[Anna Elizabeth Henry]

@Anna Elizabeth Henry, I declare!! I may swoon at work, which is frowned upon here.

LMAO! Oops - my bad! Swooning at work is frowned upon here, too! Especially since we moved into the new digs - all glass offices, all the time! It's like aquarium display. I'm the secretary fish, while my boss is the lawyer fish

 

[chellers]

Hi friends,
While I was able to find plenty of recipes (period and modern) that include hard-boiled eggs as an ingredient, few of them mention the proper technique for a good hard-boiled egg. I considered this "recreated" as they boiled eggs during the 1860s, but I couldn't find a recipe and doubt it was that complex. My biggest complaint about hard-boiled eggs has always been that nasty gray slime around the yolk, which this recipe cures. They come out perfectly every time!

I've been reading more recipes these days that suggest adding some baking soda to the water to help make peeling easier, and either I'm not adding enough or it's just a trick to make me use up my baking soda. Either way, it doesn't make much of a difference for me.

Ingredients - as you might have discerned, eggs. Brown or white work equally well.

Directions:

1. Add eggs to a medium saucepan and add enough cold water to just cover the eggs. Make sure the eggs have room to move around.
2. Bring cold water to a boil on medium-high heat. While the water is heating, prepare a bowl of ice water. I like to keep this in the freezer while I'm cooking the eggs.
3. As soon as the eggs come to a boil, remove the saucepan from the heat and cover. Let them sit undisturbed for 8-10 minutes.
4. After 8-10 minutes, put the eggs in the ice water to stop the cooking process and to help with cracking the shells.
5. Peel and enjoy! No gray nastiness around your yolks!!

Same method I use....works great every time!