One of my least favorite thing to do in the kitchen is to boil and peel eggs. It’s no big deal if you’re going to chop up the eggs for egg salad, though those chiseled yellow and white blobs are a little grotesque. But if you’re trying to do deviled eggs that need to appear presentable, that can be tough.
I have heard dozens of secret tricks to make sure hard-boiled eggs come out more or less in one piece, but it all comes back to being able to magically buy week-old eggs or store fresh eggs in your fridge until they decide to behave themselves.
But!
My son, Jimmie, my own offspring, Jimmie, has claimed a new, improved and guaranteed way to get eggs out of their shells without the use of valium.
“Steam ‘em or go home,” says Jimmie.
Steamed hard boiled eggs? Yep. Steamed eggs. Here is Jimmie’s secret.
Bring a pot of water to a hard boil and lower a steamer tray with fresh eggs – any eggs – into the pot and cook for exactly 13 minutes. Then, give them an ice bath and the egg shells practically come off by themselves. He told me that tale and said he had done them twice and they were perfect. I said he was lucky.
He did it again and continues to insist this is the way to cook hard-boiled eggs.
“I steamed 6 eggs tonight and they were perfect,” Jimmie said. “I’m now three for three and I peeled all the eggs in less than 3 minutes.”
I still don’t believe it, but I guess it’s worth a try.