As simple a food as they are, hard-boiled eggs are in fact a little tricky to get right. If you cook them too long, they’ll get that unappetizing green ring around the yolk. Start with them too fresh and they’ll be impossible to peel. If you’re looking to make a quick egg salad for lunch, this can put a real snag in your plans.
It’s time to reconsider how you cook the hard-boiled egg. In fact, it’s time you give up the boiling entirely and welcome the steamed, hard-cooked egg into your life.
If you steam instead of boil your eggs, you’ll end up with a more tender egg because it’s been cooked more gently. The eggs are also less likely to crack during the cooking process because they haven’t been banged about in a pot of bubbling water. And, since the eggs are added to the pot when it’s already steaming ― with no risk of lowering the temperature, like when you add eggs to a boiling pot ― they can be easier to peel, too. (For reasons science can explain, eggs cooked at very high temperatures are easiest to peel.) Bonus, the eggs will cook faster since you don’t have to boil a whole pot of water: just heat a bit of water in the bottom of the pot.
To steam eggs, just add about an inch of water to the bottom of a pot. Insert a steamer, cover the pot and put it on the heat. Once the water has heated enough to start steaming, gently add the eggs using tongs and recover. (Careful, the steam will be hot.) Cook for about six minutes for soft eggs and 11-12 minutes for hard eggs. (Times will vary depending on how many eggs you have in the pot.) Then plunge them in cold water to stop them from cooking further.
Watch the video above to see how (and why) Alton Brown of the Food Network does it.
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