Lest you think that we're patronizing you and, as it were, teaching your grandmother how to suck eggs, just ponder for a moment how many truly memorable, absolutely first-class boiled eggs you've ever had. It's not many, is it? Contrast that with the number of excellent steaks or succulent fish fillets or perfectly-melted cheesy pizzas, or any successfully cooked protein you commonly eat, and that statistic appears to be slightly more than an anomaly. Then compare it to the number of dishes that you can name that use boiled eggs: deviled eggs, egg mayonnaise, kedgeree, eggs mournay, Scotch eggs, um, egg biryani, i.e. not many, and you realize that not only are boiled eggs usually served very simply, but that when they are served, they are usually either the principal component of the dish, or actually just the whole meal.

 

It's exactly this spartan serving that requires that the egg be properly boiled and eggily delicious, but as we learned already, they rarely are. Then, to complete this interrogative process, ask yourself how many minutes should you boil an egg for to get it perfectly hard-boiled? If you have to guess, and say something like "um, about six minutes?" then you don't know, and while you're certainly not alone, not knowing puts the half-dozen eggs lurking in your fridge, not to mention your weekend breakfast, at risk of ruin. For me, the solution to a life-long dearth of delicious boiled eggs is, unlike most savory cookery where quantities and heat can be fudged and estimated, exactitude and absolute mastery of technique. To provide an extreme, but illustrative example, let us consider the unfortunate case of my father.

 

A man with a great many excellent qualities---he was painstaking in teaching me the fundamental techniques of his beloved game, cricket, as well as the arcane and strict Victorian-style table manners his father taught him, and, since we first owned one in 1986, he has been obsessed with packing and repacking the dishwasher to maximize both load and cleaning power---he is blessed with a rare focus on doing things the correct way or not at all. However, he is an absolute disaster of a cook and completely incapable of making even a decent slice of toast. It's oft been said of my dad, as with many such unfortunates, that he could burn water.

 

Being a stickler of an industrial scientist, Dad would descry this absurd notion as chemically impossible, but, growing up, I bore witness to his abject weekly attempts at boiling our Saturday morning breakfast eggs when my mother was working the early shift at the hospital. His unvarying menu of boiled egg and soldiers was similarly consistent in its virtual inedibility. The yolks were uniformly grey-green and falling-apart chalky, and the whites were so tough and rubbery that if you didn't use your knee to hold them down, the damn things would fly across the room when you tried to stick your knife in them. Even worse, the way they were served---in an egg cup with "soldiers" (batons of buttered toast ideal for dipping into the runny yolk of a soft-boiled egg)---meant that they were absolutely impossible to eat. At the time, it was just horrible Dad food and it made us beg our mother to switch shifts, but today, I realize that it was because my technique-obsessed father had (and still hasn't) any idea of the correct egg-boiling technique.

 

One day I shall school him in this regard, as partial recompense, perhaps, for the hundreds of times a hard cricket ball cracked into my unprotected shins when I was practicing my forward-defensive shot technique with him. (In my father's defense, he was raised in England during the period of rationing after World War II when the word cooking was synonymous with boiling everything to within an inch of its life, and, when combined with the various salmonella scares of the '80s, he can almost be forgiven for destroying our weekly eggs in order not to poison his children while our resident medical professional was out.)

 

 

As any cake-baker will tell you, eggs, especially the yolks, are one of the most capricious and delicate proteins and require a gentle and measured approach, and, as you can see from the picture above, timing is crucial in the production of a perfect boiled egg. Too little boiling (far right) and you have a soupy, salmonella-hazard, too much (far left) and you have a rubbery white and a powdery yolk. But a mere minute either way, and you'll have (second from right) either a perfectly gooey, warm-yolked soft-boiled egg or (second from left) a firm, yet smooth, hard-boiled egg that can be easily sliced, but which retains enough moisture to forfend any chalkiness. From right to left, the boiling times are 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes and 8 minutes. That's it, just a two-minute window for success, hence, the prevalence in the 1970s and '80s of charmingly kitschy egg-timers.

 

4 Minutes

 

 

5 Minutes

 

 

7 Minutes

 

 

8 Minutes

 

 

Actually, that's not quite it, because there's still the tricky little problem of the greenish-blue, or greenish-grey tinge to the outside of the yolk of many a hard-boiled egg that gives them that, ahem, farty smell. This is caused by iron in the yolk reacting with the hydrogen sulfide in the white where the two meet. Over-cooking causes this because, as the water in the egg, which contains these minerals, turns to steam but has nowhere to escape to, it gets stuck in the now-congealed membrane surrounding the yolk.

 

A green egg tastes the same as a yellow one, but it's pretty unappetizing and often reveals the cook's heavy hand. Immersing the seven-minute boiled egg in an ice-water bath for at least five minutes immediately after removing it from the pot will always prevent this culinary nasty leaving you---especially if you, as we strongly encourage you to, purchase organic eggs---with fantastically bright yellow-orange, sometimes almost red, yolks without a trace of blue, green or grey.

 

As for what to do with your now perfectly boiled eggs, well, you could just shell them, and sprinkling a little salt and black pepper overtop, enjoy them nude in all their glory, or you could try this cunning recipe courtesy of that great proponent of basic kitchen techniques, Jacques Pepin.

 

Oeufs de Jeanette

 

 

6 large organic eggs, boiled for seven minutes, cooled in an ice-water bath and shelled
1 large clove garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 tablespoon minced onion or scallion
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and black pepper

 

Slice eggs in half and extract yolks. In a mixing bowl combine yolks well with garlic, onion, parsley, salt, pepper and 1-2 tablespoons of oil, until you have a bright yellow paste flecked with green. Refill egg whites with mixture, but do not overstuff. Reserve extra filling. Heat nonstick skillet to medium-high and add remaining oil. Place eggs stuffed-side down in pan and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until faces are brown and crispy. Serve on a platter with a salad and with a dressing made from the reserved filling (see below).

 

For the dressing: Add one teaspoon smooth Dijon mustard, another two tablespoon olive oil, ½ teaspoon water and 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar to reserved mixture and combine well. Taste and correct seasoning. Serve over cooked eggs and salad.