A few weeks back, my son, Jimmie, emailed and said he had a guaranteed way to easily remove the shells from a hard-boiled egg, and the eggs didn’t necessarily have to be a week old. He said he had steamed the eggs, not boiled them.
I said he was just lucky. He did it again and sent me pictures. I still didn’t believe him, but then last week, I needed some hard-boiled eggs for eggs salad. They didn’t have to be perfect, but I figured this would be a good test for steaming eggs and removing the shells.
I think I did ten eggs and two of them I had just bought the day before, so they were relatively fresh, a good test. I got some water boiling, lowered the steam tray over the water, covered the pot and steamed for exactly 13 minutes, as instructed. When the timer went off, I removed the tray and gave the eggs a good ice bath.
After a five-sminute wait, I began the peeling process.
Lo and behold, the egg shells practically came off by themselves. Every egg was perfect, good enough for a Deviled Egg platter at a church social.
I don’t understand the science behind it, why the shells insist on being steamed in order to behave themselves, but I am now a believer.
Try it next time you need hardboiled eggs. It really works!