the perfect boiled egg

In all my years of cooking, the art of boiling an egg to perfection has somehow escaped me. Sometimes they turned out great, sometimes not so great. Sometimes the yolks had yucky green stuff around them. Sometimes you couldn't peel the things if your life depended on it. I never really knew what I was doing wrong- until now!

Here is a new method I am using, with fabulous results! I learned it from an online friend, and I am so excited at the perfection of our boiled eggs that I had to share the Egg Joy.

I start with Cage Free eggs from Egglands Best. They are the only good eggs we can get at the Commissary here at Fort Irwin, but they are better than most. If Organic were available I would go with those, but no dice. Anyway, the first thing you do is take a pin (stick pin, safety pin, whatever) and poke a hole through the shell on one end of the egg. Then you lay them in a pan and cover with cool water. Add a "glug" of vinegar (which I suppose might be 2 or 3 Tbls, not sure. Just a quick glug.) and place on the stove over medium-high heat. When they reach a boil, time for 5 minutes, then remove from heat and cover. Time for 15 more minutes. Then, pick the eggs out one at a time with a spoon (or a handy-dandy egg lifter from Tupperware if you are one of the fortunate few who own them- mine is pink!) and gently set them into a bowl of ice water. After just a few minutes they will be cool enough to handle, and ready for peeling perfection. This is even with new eggs- no need to purchase several days ahead of time. I had always heard that this was why eggs were difficult to peel, but I have tried this method on fresh eggs with perfect results!

Yum! Now go eat a nice egg and think of us.