We like hard cooked eggs. They go great on salads and we eat salads quite a bit. One thing about hard cooked eggs that was dreaded was when they were hard to peel. Experimentation and old wives tales never seemed to garner a consistently satisfying result. During some idle time I Binged hard cooked eggs just to see what I could dredge up. I found this article which led me out of the woods. I have used the hot boiling water method many times recently with great success. All the eggs turned out to be easily peeled.

The article mentioned that putting the eggs into boiling water dropped the temperature of the water. That makes sense. I start with eggs at room temperature which will minimize the water temperature drop. So here's what happened. The rolling boil water was 212F, which it should be since we are at sea level. I placed nine room temperature eggs into the water and measured the temperature. It was 204F as you can see. Only an eight degree drop. After about 5 minutes it returned to a rolling boil. They were allowed to cook for 12 minutes. I ran cold water into the pan until it cooled down then put ice on top to chill them quickly. Once cold, I peeled one to test it and found it was just perfect. This method is idiot proof, obviously.

Now a comment about boiling water. As you all remember from third grade science class, water boils at 212F and at sea level it does not get higher than that. When your instructions are calling for a rolling boil, what does that mean. We all know what it looks like, you know like a witches cauldron. Large bubbles are generated at the bottom of the pot and they rise all the way to the surface and pop. Inside those bubbles is steam, not air. If the bulk temperature of the pot is below 212F, the bubbles re-adsorb into the liquid and don't make it to the surface. The other thing about a rolling boil is that the water is agitated and you get an even temperature distribution.

That's it for this installment of Mr. Wizard today.