Friday Eggstravaganza
The definitive word on hard boiled (or "cooked"?) eggs
I love eggs so much. If I had to choose one, and only one, food to eat for the rest of my life, it would be the egg. Poached, fried (overeasy, overhard, sunny side up, well done with crispy burnt edges on the white), deviled, scrambled, baked, basted, pickled, egg salad, hard-boiled, I’ve never had an egg I didn’t like.
My history with eggs goes way back, but I won’t go into that right now. Suffice to say, if you want to be my friend, bring me a McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. I love Egg McMuffins. I usually buy two at the start of every road trip. In lieu of bring me one, you could sign up as paying customer for my substack, and I’ll put the fee toward my Egg McMuffin allowance. It’s easy to sign up and even to tell your friends about. I’ll wait. . . . (but only if you want to. If you want to subscribe on the free plan, that would be amazing as well.)
On with the show.
Over the holidays, the girlfriend’s mom made hard-boiled eggs for our visit to see her and the her family. I had almost forgotten how much I like hard-boiled eggs. I didn’t, but we had fallen into some other culinary habits and neglected our hard-boiled egg habit.
After the holidays, I decided to hard-boil a dozen eggs, which led to a bit of experimentation, and a scientific outcome! It’s science when you try it, you achieve what you wanted, and there’s a clear winner.
I have a favorite hard-boiled egg recipe. On my phone. Somewhere. How do those bookmarks work? Where do they live? I searched the internet and found it, but first found other ways to hard boil an egg, namely, with an air fryer and an instant pot! What?!?
SACRILEGE! First, isn’t an air fried egg just another way to FRY an egg, hence the name? And pressure cooking an egg - that can’t be hard-boiling either. Where’s the boil? Oh but it’s both. Read on for the experimentation and the results.
HARD-BOILED EGGS - Method One
Put the eggs in a pot of cold water. Heat the water to a roiling (rolling?) boil. Once the water is roiling (?) - er, boiling, remove the pot from the heat and cover. Let stand in the water for 11 minutes. Remove eggs and put in an ice bath (a bowl filled with ice and water). Let stand in the ice bath for about an hour. Place eggs in an air-tight container or (as I’ve done for about 50 years and never had a problem) back in the cardboard container.
Voila! Hard-boiled eggs.
There are variations of course, but this is not a cooking blog. It’s high science and humanities. “Ohhhhh the humanity!”
The problem with this method: sometimes the eggs are hard to peel. The peel sticks to the egg and you lose so much egg white in the process and end up with this relief painting on an egg. The eggs will be delicious. Serve any way you wish.
I tend to peel and sprinkle pepper and salt on the outside, take a bite, sprinkle salt on the inside and eat the rest. It’s a two-bite snack!
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Hard-Boiled Eggs - Method Two - Air Fryer
I eat fried eggs - 3, 4, 5, 6 at a time. I think fried eggs were the first thing I ever learned to cook. They never seem to fill me up, whereas omelettes and scrambled eggs often have accompaniments.
(In our city there is a restaurant that advertises a 12-egg omelette. I had a 4-egg omelette the other day and thought it was an egg too far.)
In looking for my tried-and-true hard-boiled egg recipe, I ran into “how to hard boil “cook” eggs in an air fryer.” Despite this misnomer, this really is a way to hard boil an egg.
Preheat air fryer to 250 degrees (or skip that step and add a few minutes longer if using a cold air fryer. Place eggs in an air-fryer tray (they also sell egg baskets for the air fryer). Cook for 13 to 17 minutes. Remove from air fryer and put in ice bath. The recipe I followed didn’t say you had to ice bath the eggs for an hour. So I cooled them for about just a couple minutes and tried to peel them.
There was one that peeled easily, and the others were still a little difficult to peel. The egg stuck to the shell, even when placed under running water.
But air frying eggs was considerably faster and dirtied less equipment than boiling them in a pot!
They were delicious and indistinguishable from water-boiled eggs.
Hard-Boiled Eggs - Method 3 - Instant Pot 5-5-5
Our Crock-pot (r) brand slow cooker finally all but quit on us. One side of the push button panel worked while the other didn’t. We’ve been through the wars with this old thing, and he/she/they are now retired.
We did some research and bought a comparable Instant Pot that will suit our needs.
In trying to find my tried-and-true hard-boiled egg recipe, I ran into a “How to hard-boil eggs in an Instant Pot.” This was intriguing to me.
So I looked it up and tried it.
The Instant Pot method is a 5-5-5 method. 5 minutes for cooking, 5 minutes for venting steam, and 5 minutes for ice bath.
Here’s the skinny:
Pour 1 cup of water into the Instant Pot. Use an egg cradle or just a tripod that most likely comes with the instant pot and set the eggs in there. They sell egg cradles that will hold 14 eggs. I used a tripod and spaced the eggs out on the wires.
I used the 6-6-6 method, just to make sure.
Use the manual setting for the Instant Pot and set it for 5 minutes on high pressure. Make sure the steam vent is closed. The Instant Pot will warm up before counting down. That counts as some cooking time. When the timer goes off, wait 5 more minutes (the Instant Pot will revert to “warming”). After 5 minutes of warming/waiting, release the rest of the steam, take the cover off the Instant Pot, and remove with tongs to an ice bath. Leave in the ice bath for 5 minutes. Peel immediately and eat, or refrigerate and eat later.
The first egg I picked up with the tongs was so soft that the shell collapsed and the egg flattened, as if I had used much force. I barely squeezed the tongs. More carefully, I removed the rest of the eggs with the tongs and put them in the ice bath for 5 minutes. I only made 4 eggs in this batch since it was a test run.
After 5 minutes in the ice bath, I peeled the smooshed egg. The shell fell off that egg as easily as blowing a dandelion into the wind. I tried another egg and it too just smoothly removed itself from the egg. No picking at it at all.
The eggs themselves were slightly discolored on the outside of the egg (not the shell, but the egg itself), but the rest of the egg was firm and the yolks were perfect.
I have never peeled a hard-boiled egg so easily! It was actually FUN to slide that shell off the egg.
I tried one of the eggs that had been hard-boiled the day before to see if refrigerating the egg improved removing the shell. It didn’t.
In one sitting, I ate 5 hard-boiled eggs so quickly, which I quickly regretted. But all was well.
The science experiment worked!
FACT: Hard-boiled eggs cooked in an Instant Pot leads to easily-removed shells.
There you have it! Whatever your favorite way to cook and eat eggs, if you want easy to remove shells, “hard boil” them in an Instant Pot or pressure cooker! It’s fast and easy, and the shells will “litrally” fall off the egg!
Animal Update: Starbuck (tortoise shell 5-month old kitten (nicknamed - crazy!) and 5-year old Herman the Dachshund have been introduced and like each other! Animals and humans are all adjusting nicely. More pics and updates soon.
Next time, new information about developmental editing and writing coaching, and progress on the memoir.
Until then, have a great week and weekend.
Just keep writing!
I have written a memoir and am currently revising and will soon resume querying to seek traditional publication. Please consider supporting my writing with a paid subscription. You can also buy a gift subscription for a friend or loved one. Every little bit helps!
I write about:
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