How to Boil an Egg

I have been boiling eggs for a long while and have tried ALL the methods --or so I thought-- to get eggs to peel easily. I reasoned I had a pretty good handle on this most basic of kitchen cookerys.

Boiling eggs came up the other day in a group I'm in, prompting much discussion. I had thought that adding salt or baking soda to the water worked fairly well, especially for farm fresh eggs like we usually have. I still did spend an inordinate amount of time peeling the little cackle berries though. I had tried the pin method too, where you puncture the shell but not the sac around the albumen in order to let the water separate them and make peeling easier. I thought this made the eggs too wet and frankly a little gross. I had also tried the YouTube videos' wherein they basically blow an egg out of its shell in seconds--which didn't work at all for me.

Then last night my friend Amber changed my life forever. Boiling eggs again came up in conversation. She shared how she just read an article how to boil eggs and was feeling success in the egg peeling arena for the first time in her life. She had pretty much given up until she read the article. It convinced her because told her the science behind the method, so she thought she would try one last try.

My experiment included the white store bought eggs of undetermined age we had on hand for Brielle's activities she came up with when she taught preschool last week, the brown eggs I marked "old" which were at the back of the fridge from a friend's farm, and then the plain brown eggs we took out of the nesting boxes within the last couple of days.

Here is what you do: boil water. Put your steamer on your pot.

Add the eggs to the steamer--only once the water is boiling, mind you. Cover.

Set your timer for 12 minutes. Go laugh your head off to a Good Mythical Morning episode. (I guess that part can be optional, but seriously, you should do it.) When your timer rings, immerse your eggs in an ice water bath.

We didn't have very much ice but it still worked.

I didn't time this part, but I first measured my kids' tee shirts to be sure of their sizes and placed an order for some Classical Conversations shirts.

So however long that took is how long they sat in the icy water.

Now. This is the amazing part.

Elivette and I peeled all nine eggs in about two minutes,

even the ones that had been under a chicken a day or so ago. 

Now, go boil and peel happy.