Boiled Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the eggs
Bring a pot of water to a boil.
Carefully add the eggs using a tablespoon to avoid cracking.
Cook soft-boiled eggs for 3 minutes; cook hard-boiled eggs for 8 to 10 minutes.
Steep in hot water
Place eggs in a dish, pour boiling water over them, and cover the dish.
Let sit for 15 minutes.
Start from cold water
Start with cold water.
Bring to a boil.
Remove from heat.
Cool
Immediately transfer hard-boiled eggs to cold water to prevent discoloration.
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.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Proteins set as they heat, firming the white and yolk to the desired softness.
The step that matters
Cook hard-boiled eggs for 8 to 10 minutes, then move them to cold water at once. Overcooking and slow cooling let sulfur in the white react with iron in the yolk, forming a greyish-green ring. Chilling right away stops the cooking and prevents this discoloration.
“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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