mira dessy

A watched pot never boils

                                    - Poor Richard

On the surface of it, the idea of boiling an egg seems like a fairly straightforward endeavor. Eggs, water, heat, cook, peel, and eat. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Everyone has their own theory and it turns out there’s no sure-fire foolproof recipe when it comes to hard-boiled eggs.

One theory says you can start by boiling the water and then adding the eggs. The opposing theory says you begin with a pot of cold water that has the eggs already in it and bring that to a boil. How many minutes is a matter of opinion and how jammy you want the yolks to be. Not interested in hard cooking your eggs in water? It turns out you can cook them in the shell in the oven. Or, if you have two hours to spare, you can use a slow cooker. I tried the oven method once out of curiosity. It cooks them, but they get these funny little spots all over them and the consistency isn’t great. I’ve never done the slow cooker method though. Who thinks that far ahead for hard-boiled eggs?

I’ve also read that you should pull your eggs from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before boiling so they will be closer to room temperature and cook more evenly. Again, who plans that far ahead?

I personally am a fan of hard-boiled eggs with a delicious jammy center. In my experience that usually comes to about three minutes of boiling after which you removed the pot from the heat, leave the egg in hot water for one minute, remove the egg from the pot and immediately plunge it into ice cold water.

However you choose to make your hard-boiled eggs, once it’s cooked comes the ugly truth, peeling. I’ve been told that older eggs are easier to peel. I rarely remember to buy extra eggs just so they can lurk on a back shelf in the refrigerator and age. If I’m lucky enough to have a container of older eggs they do sometimes seem to peel easier, but it’s not a guarantee. I’ve also found no matter how you boil your eggs it’s difficult to peel all of them without creating at least a few hard-boiled eggs that resemble the cratered surface of the moon. Which is definitely less than attractive if you’re planning to make deviled eggs.

My strategy when making deviled eggs is to boil twice as many eggs as I need just to make sure I have enough good looking eggs. Needless to say, we eat a lot of egg salad in the aftermath of deviled egg days.

Recently I’ve purchased an instant pot multi function cooker. My daughters convinced me this is the best way to make hard-boiled eggs; they claim the eggs turn out just right and peel perfectly every single time if you use an instant pot. A quick search of the internet turned up the 5-5-5 method. This strategy claims the eggs take only five minutes to cook, if you’re willing to leave out the amount of time it takes to come to pressure. You start by adding 1 cup of water into the instant pot, add a trivet (I used a metal folding steamer basket), add 12 eggs, and set to high. This is followed by a natural release, meaning they sit in the pot for another five minutes, and then a quick release of pressure, which creates an astonishing amount of steam. One the white pressure pin goes down, open the pot, grab the eggs with tongs and plunge them  into an ice-cold bath for another five minutes. Voila! Perfect hard-cooked eggs.

So I decided to try it. I must have done something wrong. Maybe it was because the eggs had brown shells? Or maybe I over cooked them. Because while they were fully cooked and peeled like a charm, I’m pretty sure the pigment from the shell discolored the whites. These eggs were quite unappetizing to look at which made it difficult to eat them. Even after they were mulched into egg salad. In case you were wondering, beige-y brown egg salad is simply not appealing, even to really hungry husbands.

For my second instant pot batch of hard-boiled eggs, I bought white eggs. Sure enough, they cooked properly, and they peeled easily. Each one of them had a smooth, unblemished outer surface. They looked like pre-deviled egg goddesses lying there naked and shell-less on the plate. The whites of the eggs were soft and tender. The yolks, unfortunately, were very firm and not my aforementioned jammy preference.

Luckily we like hard-boiled eggs in our house, so I made a third batch. This one was almost perfect. Three minutes at pressure with an immediate quick release followed by a plunge into an ice bath. The eggs peel perfectly each time. Unfortunately, they’re not jammy in consistency. I’m tempted to try 2 minutes in the instant pot but then realize I’d have to eat an entire dozen jammy-centered hard-cooked eggs by myself because my husband prefers the three-minute firmer yolks. So I’m relegated to the old-fashioned boiling-water-on-the-stove trick for those times when I absolutely must have a jammy center boiled egg.

As I learn to cook with this new appliance, I suddenly realize all of my grandchildren live in households with an instant pot. They’re growing up with the idea that the pot does all the work. I wonder if when they grow up they’ll know how to boil water to cook an egg.

Badly Peeled Egg Salad

6 eggs that didn't peel well
3 tablespoons of mayonnaise
1 heaping teaspoon mustard
2 teaspoons dried Vidalia onion flakes
1 teaspoon minced fresh parsley
sea salt and pepper to taste
paprika

Shred eggs using your favorite method (fork, potato masher, grater, handheld egg shredder thingy, etc)
Add mayonnaise mustard, onion flakes, parsley, salt, and pepper, and mix to combine well
Arrange on a plate and dust with paprika