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I gotta say - Grant's postings are the best so far from any of the writers auditioning for the Kitchen site OR the main AT site. I'll read Grant.

Of course, a case can be made for the 65 degree egg which is all the rage in France. That is to cook it in a 65 degree (C or 149 degree F) water bath. Time is not critical, it could stay in there for hours. The result is a barely set, custardly smooth white with soft orange and creamy yolk. You can adjust it up to 170 degree F for firmer textures but the key to prevent rubberiness is to stop before 184 when the white protein completely coagulates. Courtesy of Herve This.

Great job Grant, I've enjoyed all of your posts thoroughly thus far!

Ant: Is the 65 degree egg a creamier/less done version of a minute egg? It sounds like something i'd like to try, since despite it's seemingly simple name I have yet to master it. My yolks are always either too cooked through and not creamy, or not quite cooked at all.

Laura:

Most yolk proteins solidify around 158F so if you are looking for a creamy yolk, that's your bullseye. If your oven will go down that low, that's an easy way to do it. Otherwise, a lot of water and an accurate thermometer is the way to go.

Again, timing doesn't really matter nearly as much as temperature. Minute (actually, any hard/soft/*-boiled) eggs are trying to approximate the internal temperature using a 212F cooking temp and adjusting the cooking time.

the salt or vinegar are not to prevent cracking, but to prevent the making of egg drop soup if they *do* crack

or if you'd rather, to speed coagulation in the water if the eggs crack

that's what the old wives told me, anyway

mmmm... all this talk of eggs is making me hungry for pickled red beet eggs... or, maybe just lunch!

I love Grant's writing. It's clean, grammatically correct, insightful and doesn't seem to need much "touching".

As always, nicely done Grant. (my second fave is Faith!)

I boil mine the exact same way, only I leave them for 10 minutes instead of 12.

Me too, Lisa. I also let them boil with the heat for 30 to 60 seconds before covering and removing.

Does anyone have a good deviled egg recipe?

Very informative, Grant, especially the 12-minute part. Keep 'em coming!

I've found that piercing the eggs with an egg piercer before putting them in the pot helps to keep them from getting cracked.

today is one of those days when i find out that i had no idea what i was doing! wow, i just bought some fresh eggs today and i am going to give this a try tomorrow. (i have a really hard time eating breakfast but i know how important it is so i'm in the process of trying to change my habit of just having a banana each morning).

bravo to grant! i love his writing style and feel he would be an asset to the AT: Kitchen team. nice job!

Grant, love your writing and thanks for the refresher course.

Does anyone have any tips on peeling hardboiled eggs? That is definitely my Waterloo.

Thanks Ant! Now I have a new mission for the weekend: perfect eggs.

abby, peeling is easier if you cool them well, I find. I hold them under cold running water for a little while, then place them in a bowl with cold water for a bit more, changing the water if necessary until cool. This works for me, hope it helps.

thanks leeds. i've tried: running water, underwater, cooling, freezing, ice cube baths, reboiling...still the egg always seems to stick to the shell in bitsy pieces. i'm hoping grant's method for hardboiling works better (ie leads to easier peeling) than the other methods i've tried. i'll let you know.

Nice. I can attest that this works. A friend taught me this method years ago and it's absolutely fool proof. Except for the peeling part. Sometimes they wanna be peeled and sometimes they don't, though cold water helps.

Deviled eggs:
mayonnaise, salt and pepper, a touch of caper or bread & butter pickle juice and a bit of tabasco (all to taste). Top with smoked Spanish paprika or Allepo pepper. Simple and really good. Sometimes I add a little nugget of avocado for fun.

I keep seeing egg-related things everywhere! This post, souffles on Barefoot Contessa the other day, and a post on Syllabub, describing both a recipe for 'tea eggs' and ideas for urban chicken-cooping:

http://syllabub.blogspot.com/2006/08/tea-eggs.html

Nice post, Grant. Now, I definitely need to go eat some eggs.

Nice job Grant! I love this method - I am also of the 10 min. camp. I'm also a disaster when it comes to peeling but I find letting them cool is really key (I'm just usually impatient or in a rush).

Has anyone ever had steamed eggs? A local korean restaurant serves them as a side dish and they're heavenly - light, almost fluffy. I can't quite figure out how they do them - whip eggs, place in bowl, then steam? anyone know?

Here's the deal with peeling eggs: the fresher they are, the harder it is. Eggs that were laid less than 5 days ago are unlikely to peel smoothly. Other than that, the variability in peelability comes from the diet and breed of the chickens laying the eggs.

This is based on my own egg collection experience from the chickens in the yard. I usually wait at least a few days before I try to boil any newly-collected eggs.

Factory farmed eggs may be different.

After the 12 minutes (10 in my case), I run the eggs under cold water until they are cool enough to handle, but still warm, and I peel them right away. I think if you wait until they are completely cold (either room-temp or refrigerator-cold), the membrane will stick to the egg white. I think I read Julia Child saying somewhere that the reason you want to cool it with cold water right after boiling is that you create steam inside of the egg between the membrane and the white, which helps separate them. Juan (not juanito)

oh man, go grant! i've been using this method for a few years, and i can definitely attest to it's ease and consistency. is the 65 degree egg thing the same as the bath cooked eggs from momofuku? there was a recipe in the nyt sometime in april.

on another egg/grant related note, i just tried the slow cooked scrambled eggs (http://tinyurl.com/lfthh) a couple of days ago, and they were delish! i forget how versatile eggs can be -- it's so easy to get in an egg rut.

I have to vote for Grant, too. Not only is his copy good, but he obviously knows food and how to cook.

"Does anyone have a good deviled egg recipe?"

When I worked as a prepared foods chef, I used to sell these lovely deviled eggs -

French mayo, a touch of lemon juice, thyme and sea salt and white pepper. That's it. Garnish was just a little extra thyme, s+p sprinkled over, isntead of the usual paprika.

I've also heard that eggs are easier to peel if you start peeling from the 'air pocket' end of the egg (usually the slightly wider, not-so-pointy end).

My favorite way to peel a hard-boiled egg is to tap both ends (lightly) and then roll it around gently until the whole shell is all crackly. It might seem like breaking the shell up into little teeny pieces like that would make it harder to peel, but it actually sort of pulls the whole shell away from the egg and you can usually get it off in one schwoop.
If the egg is really fresh (which makes peeling harder), I might also run it under cold water.

I was just listening to a podcast about self-timing eggs being developed in the UK. Check it out:
http://www.eggrecipes.co.uk/eggnews/asp/news.asp

abby, s. is right--the rolling method works! that's what i do each time, and it works pretty reliably.

I'm enjoying Grant's posts. I do, however, have a quibble.
"It would seem like one of the most basic things that every cook ought to know, regardless of skill level, is how to hard boil an egg, and yet a large number of people I polled had only a vague idea of how to do it."

I would prefer "It would seem that one of the most basic things every cook,regardless of skill level, ought to know is how to hard boil and egg..."

Well you sure got me pegged with the vinegar. I thought for sure that the salt was keeping 'em all together.

Great post . . . Grant. At the start of summer (deviled egg and potato salad season for me) when I use so many hard boiled eggs, I took a time out to look up some instructions for hard boiling eggs. Mark Bittman calls for pricking holes in each end to prevent them from breaking. It's time consuming and an odd process (i use a thumb tack), but it does seem to make a difference. Also carefully lowering the eggs into the water and picking a pan that didn't let the eggs move around too much really helped me out.

regarding the steamed egg that minipanda had inquired about -- mini's got the right idea. tho in addition to the whipped eggs, one needs to add a bit of moisture for that fluffy consistency. i usually add veggie broth, but any liquid will do. anyway, pop the egg/liquid mixture into a container and steam away. my rice cooker comes with a steaming pan, and that's how i usually make steamed eggs. however, i imagine that a regular steamer would do the trick. it usually takes me about 20-25 mins, basically however long it takes my rice to cook.

I like Alton Brown's tip about hardboiling eggs which is to take the carton, put a rubber band around it and place it on it's side for at least 12 hrs before you boil so that the yolk is always in the centre. This is an especially good tip for people making deviled eggs.

I was second guessing myself as i'm making deviled eggs for a party today. I have always started eggs covered with cold water, bring the water up to slow to boil, simmer 18, move pan to the sink and fill pan with ice. I am leary of letting them stand in cooling water. I've never had the green stuff and I peel them immediately, let them cool before I finish my recipe. after reading the the different "perfect" recipes, I think I'll stay with mine...

Older eggs are definately required for easy peeling. I let mine sit for two weeks in the fridge after buying them at the store.

For Deviled Eggs I use Marzetti's Slaw Dressing. It is very sweet and tangy and people are familar with the taste but can't quite place it. You will get alot of "what did you put in these deviled eggs?" comments. The Marzetti's can be a bit much if used alone so I usually go 50/50 with mayo or Miracle Wip. Add white pepper and / or paprika and / or dill weed according to preference.

I also use a ziplock sandwich bag with the corner cut out as a poor man's pasty bag to fill the eggs halves.