How to boil an egg? Get an egg. Put it in water. Bring to the boil. The end. Now, piss off.
In all seriousness, I have a funny relationship with eggs. I’ve always felt sorry for them, as they only get laid once and it takes 4 minutes to get hard *ahem* Don’t egg me on…
The default ‘egg-head’ Twitter avatar freaks me right out. I find the intensity of the blank stare quite sinister, and refuse to follow anyone hiding behind the shroud of the white oval mask.
I also have to be ‘in the mood’ to consume egg yolk, as if I think about it too much, I can’t get the image of a bright yellow unborn chick out of my head and then it’s game over. An oeuf can quite often make me go ‘oof’.
No matter how you like your eggs – hard boiled, soft boiled, or fertilised (snigger) – it’s pretty easy to get ’em right by just varying the cooking time. As with many things in life, it’s all about the timing.
Don’t boil eggs that are ‘refrigerator fresh’
Cos cold eggs + boiling water = broken eggs
Use a proper timer thingy if you can
Trying to guess or use your watch/phone can be tricksy. Particularly if you’re easily distracted, like me.
Put a prick in it
Oo-er! Another away to avoid exploding eggs is to make a pin prick in the larger, rounded end of the shell to let the steam out.
The smaller the better…
…saucepan size, that is. If there’s too much extra space, the eggs will float about like bumper cars and smash.
Less is more
Don’t over boil ’em. Your eggs will end up all rubbery with nasty black yolks. BLEURGH.
Fresh eggs take longer
If you’ve plucked your eggs straight from the chicken’s arse, allow an extra 30 seconds cooking time.
Fill the pan with enough water to cover the eggs plus one inch and add a teaspoon of salt (this stops ’em cracking). Bring the water to the boil.
Whilst the water is heating up, take each egg and pierce.
Once the water is boiling gently, lower the eggs c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y into the pan with a tablespoon. As the water reaches boiling point again, reduce the heat so that the water is simmering and begin timing.
Cooking times
Large eggs: cook the eggs for 4 minutes, for a runny yolk and 6 minutes for a medium-boiled egg, where the yolk is only slightly runny.
Medium eggs: reduce these cooking times by one minute.
Massive eggs: add on one minute.
As soon as the cooking time is up, whack the eggs under cold running water.
When they’ve cooled down, pop ’em in eggcups and serve with dipping soldiers and salt. This is compulsory and the actual law in some countries.
To consume, bop each egg on the head and get dippin’. Dee-to-the-lish!
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