I love reading Lifehacker, and I check it every day to see what new thing I can do to “improve” my life. Unfortunately, the site focuses far too much on apps for a bunch of tech and gadgets I simply don’t have access to, but every now and then I find an article that’ll give me a little trick or “hack” that makes what up until then was an everyday, mundane activity suddenly become exciting.
Lifehacker’s where I first learned that you could peel a hard-boiled egg by simply poking a hole at the tip and blowing into it. It’s the kind of site that teaches you to take off your shirt in a second, and to open a beer bottle with just one hand. I don’t drink beer, but it’s still a great skill to have to impress people at parties.
I don’t go to parties, either.
Anyway, last week I read this article, which explained how you could make “better” hard-boiled eggs in the oven. According to the recipe, you’d end up with creamier, fluffier eggs – aspects of an egg that fall under the category of “stuff I never thought about until now but somehow always wanted”. Comments for the article over at Food.com also said that the eggs would end up with being less rubbery.
So I gave it a try.
First off, it takes half an hour, which is about twice as long than what it takes to boil an egg in water, if you want it to be hard. So there’s that.
Second, the recipe does actually work. I didn’t set them on fire as the comic suggests, but the shells did brown a bit. They’re a bit more difficult to peel, and the article recommends peeling them in ice-cold water. This, of course, requires you to prepare water and ice so you can peel the eggs in it, which – again – seems to be less convenient than just boiling them, poking a hole at the tip and blowing them out of their shells.
Now, I don’t really know if the resulting egg is – in fact – creamier and fluffier than any regular hard-boiled egg. I’m inclined to call a placebo effect here where people simply convince themselves that the eggs are better. As far as I could tell, it was basically the same eggs with the added unpleasantness of the outside layer of the white a bit tougher – perhaps I overcooked them. I used the exact temperature and time from the recipe, but then again I am hotter than most people. Yeah.
Most importantly, I’d have to say that if the rubbery texture, cream and fluff level of regular hard-boiled is something you feel needs to be improved upon, then you might want to consider the possibility that you simply don’t like hard-boiled eggs. Cook them some other way or eat something else.
Good hunting;
O
Funny enough, last nightI had to clean eggs from my apartment’s wall, thrown by a passing drunk.
Is there a story behind today’s comic?
This is one of those Commissioned episodes where I wonder wether O really did this or he just didn’t have the chance yet?
if it needs exact temperatures and times to cook, then your oven’s temperature gauge is not enough. You’ll need to get an IR thermometer to get that right.
“about twice as long”? Boiling eggs for 15 minutes?! From my experiences 8-9 minutes are enough to have a hardboiled one. ;P
You say you are vegetarian but still you eat animal embryos…
Its 00:08am and I’m sitting in my room reading a artist talk about the best way to boil eggs.
My life. It has peaked.
@Jaakoppi Yup. Vegans don’t eat anything that comes from animals if they can avoid it. Veggies only avoid what the animal had to die to give…or have taken away anyway.
@Jaakopi: What Klokwerk says is true, I’m a vegetarian, not a vegan. If no animals died for my food, I’m good.
Now, the important issue here is that if you really think eggs are chicken embryos, you’re in for a hell of a surprise.
@Jaakopi: That would only be true if the eggs had been fertilised beforehand. Since the vast, VAST majority of eggs are laid by hens that never get to see a rooster their entire lives, the eggs are never fertilised and thus cannot contain a chicken embryo.
On the subjects of eggs as food themselves, I like them as omelettes, I like them scrambled, I like them sunny-side up and I like them soft-boiled. However, I do NOT like them hard-boiled. The powdery texture of hard-boiled yolks just sends all kinds of bad signals to my tongue; if I must eat hard-boiled eggs, I just eat the whites and leave the yolks behind.
Well, here’s how to improve on hard boiled eggs: make them into Scotch eggs! This won’t be good if you are vegan or vegetarian. Boil them (the regular way) – peel them (however you can) – wrap them in sausage, then dip in flour, milk and bread crumbs (in that order). Then cook them again in a hot convection oven for about 20 minutes until the sausage is done and the breading is crispy. Now, we used to fry them instead of baking, but the baking leaves a much better taste to the sausage. Dip in mustard, or marmalade-mustard if you can.
O, I know they arent, I just dont know the right english word for it what I’m after
If you haven’t tried this yet: heat the water to slightly under the boiling point. The eggs are less tough and the yolk is soft and yellow instead of hard and green. Supposedly there is an ideal temperature, but I find it to be more of a preference thing with a bit of leeway before it becomes gross and gooey. Learned it from NPR, where I sadly get much of my random info these days.
If any of you are at all interested in how cooking works from a practical and chemical reaction standpoint (like what does heat do to the structure of food to make it softer and tastier) or what does baking soda actually DO, I can not recommend this book enough. It is a compulsory textbook for aspiring chefs at the Culinary Institute of America:
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee
It’s also loaded with carefully researched origins of popular food ingredient and all kinds of interesting food related trivia and facts, like that dry-cured ham creates internally the same fruity esters that occur naturally in melons, hence the mouthwatering succulent flavor of such ham.
The best hard boiled eggs are easy.
1. Fill a pot with water from whatever source you prefer.
2. Put your eggs in the pot, straight from the refrigerator is fine.
3. Bring the water to a boil
4. Turn off the heat (or remove the pot from the stove, whichever).
5. Wait 15 minutes. Remove the eggs.
You’re done.
Adding a few pinches of salt to the water helps the water penetrate the eggs and thus helps prevent cracking and helps separate the membrane from the shell making them a little easier to peal. It will not make the eggs salty or reduce the boiling time in any significant way, contrary to popular belief. Putting a lid on the pot will reduce boiling time, however.