How to Boil an Egg

Speaking of cooking by the seat of your pants, lets talk eggs. Eggs are perfect. Fried, scrambled, poached, over-easy. For breakfast, lunch, power snack or brinner. Hard boiling eggs gets the rep for being easy, but is it? Every chef seems to have their formula. Martha – bring to boil and leave for 12 minutes. The Egg people suggest bringing water nearly to a boil and letting eggs stand covered for 15 minutes. Mark Bittman will have us believe that nothing beats a nine minute boil followed by cold bath. 

I have not done a scientific A/B split to test 9 minute boil against 12 minutes covered, but with dozens of eggs ‘under my belt,’ here is my trusty formula owning to now forgotten online source:

photo: MarthaStewart.com

Eggs go into a pot of cold water, no salt necessary (I read somewhere that salt does not prevent cracking but turns yolk gray). Bring the pot to a boil, lower the temperature just a little and let the eggs boil for 3 minutes. Turn off the stove, cover the pot and let stand for 11 more minutes. Then, drain and pour cold water over the eggs (adding ice to the pot makes it easier to peel the eggs). That about does it.