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Boiled Eggs

Eggs cooked in their shells in boiling water, with timings for soft-boiled and hard-boiled results.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Landmarks Club · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Soft-boil

  1. Place the eggs in warm water to heat the shells so they will not crack when put into boiling water.

  2. Let the water in the saucepan boil violently.

  3. Put the eggs in carefully.

  4. When the water again bubbles, remove it from the fire.

  5. Cover and let the eggs remain in for five minutes.

  6. Put the eggs into boiling water and cook for three minutes, with the water boiling all the time.

  7. Place the eggs in cold water on the fire and remove them as soon as the water boils.

  8. Use plenty of water, about a pint for two eggs.

Hard-boil and peel

  1. For hard eggs, boil them for twenty-five minutes.

  2. Place the hard-boiled eggs in cold water for fifteen minutes.

  3. Roll the eggs lightly on the table to crush the shells, then peel them off.

  4. Use a sharp, thin knife to cut the eggs.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

384Calories
15 gProtein
25 gFat
27 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Landmarks Club. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg proteins set with heat, so cooking time decides whether the yolk stays runny or turns firm.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling when the eggs go in. Adding eggs to water that has cooled too much lowers the temperature and changes the cooking time, so the set of the white and yolk becomes unpredictable. Keeping the water at a full boil gives a consistent result.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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