Boiled egg 101

The Incredulous Egg Query goes like this: “What do you mean you ‘don’t know how to cook?’ As in not even an egg?” — the underlying assumption being that it takes a complete imbecile to screw up egg. It’s just egg, right? What could be easier?

Honestly, I’m not so sure. Not anymore, in any case. Looking at the photo from the last post, I noticed that my hard-boiled eggs had this grayish-green lining around their yolks. It’s not something I normally dwell upon; we have always boiled eggs that way (and if there is any truth to the claim that over-boiled egg has a “sulfuric” smell/taste, I confess that I haven’t noticed, or maybe I’m simply used to it, which thought right now leaves me unsettled). And yet pictures do have an uncanny way of highlighting imperfections that we tend to overlook in the daily course of things, like that pimple on your forehead that you hardly notice, until someone posts your photo on Facebook and damn if that… thing doesn’t suddenly occupy the whole screen. Once my eyes zeroed in on the dark rings on those eggs I could not focus on anything else.

According to those in the know, there is a proper way of boiling egg. But first, a clarification: Apparently, you do not really boil egg — at least not in the way we employ that term. Top egg (preferably old, because it peels easier) with an inch of cold water, cover pan, and, once the water comes to a boil, turn off heat. For soft, let egg steep for 3 minutes; for medium cooked, 5 minutes; and for hard, allow 5 more (or 10 minutes total). Then soak in cold water and peel — voila! No unsightly ring (and you save gas in the deal).

Is that easy, or what?

But the mind resists. If anything, it seems easier to ruin an egg by overcooking than it is to get it right by just sitting back and letting residual heat do the job. Force of habit, you know? And yet here’s proof of concept:

This egg was cooked for 20 minutes (15 minutes to boil the water at medium to high heat, plus 5 minutes to steep with the heat off). It qualifies as medium-cooked, although the yolk has set quite a bit for my liking (a minute less of steeping would have been ideal). I made a mess of peeling, which I can with certainty say would not have been the case had I let it soak in cold water for a bit longer, because I had no such problem with the hard-cooked egg (below).

(Note: I added a teaspoon of vinegar to the water, supposedly to stop the contents of the egg from seeping out should its shell crack during cooking. One egg did crack — and held. So there is something to the technique after all.)

Here’s the hard-cooked egg:

Total time: 35 minutes (25 to cook/steep and 10 to cool down). The yolk has set evenly without drying out completely. And notice the lack of discoloration around the yolk in both cases. That would have been good enough for me, but there was more to it than just that. These eggs tasted… different, kind of, and not just texture-wise; they had this hint of sweetness that I had never associated with or tasted in egg before. Smelled better, too. I could get used to this, though not to the prejudice of over-boiled egg: I’ll still eat that. Sulfur? What sulfur?