Boiled Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the eggs
Bring a saucepan of water to a boil.
Gently place the eggs in the boiling water using a spoon, ensuring the spoon touches the bottom before withdrawing it.
For lightly boiled eggs, cook for 3 minutes; for medium, 3¾ to 4 minutes; for hard‑boiled, 6 to 7 minutes.
If using large eggs, add an extra 30 seconds to the cooking time.
Boil salad eggs for 10 to 15 minutes.
Cool and peel
Transfer the boiled salad eggs to a basin of cold water for a few minutes.
Roll the eggs on the table with your hand to make peeling easier.
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
- Fresh eggs
- Provide the protein that sets from liquid to firm as the cooking time increases.
- Boiling water
- Delivers steady, high heat to cook the eggs evenly in their shells.
The step that matters
Timing the cook for the egg style wanted. Egg white sets at lower heat than the yolk, and yolk firmness depends closely on minutes in the water. Even a small overrun turns a soft yolk chalky and grey-ringed, so timing must match the target.
“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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