Why has it taken me so long to figure out how to make perfectly peeled hard-boiled eggs
By Patsy R. Brumfield
The Southfacin’ Cook
Years ago, I complained to my long-time friend Joe Rutherford of Tupelo that I hated to peel hard-boiled eggs. Joe was famous for making dozens of stuffed eggs for the many Tupelo First Presbyterian Church dinners.
“I like to peel eggs,” he responded. “Really?” I thought, then stupidly failed to ask the obvious follow-up question any decent reporter would have: “Why?”
The answer, I now believe, was that Joe knew the secret and I didn’t – UNTIL NOW!!
I’m one of those people who like to watch TV cooking shows. Oh, not just any cooking show, but those snooty ones like America’s Test Kitchen or Cook’s Country, where they try a recipe 732 times in 732 ways at 732 temperatures so that you and I don’t have to. Well, of course, no one I know would do something so foolish – but these folks are in the biz. Somebody else pays for all that wasted, undelicious food from the unsuccessful 731 times.
So, recently, these cooking people offered a brainstorm: How to cook the perfect hard-boiled egg.
I jumped on it and friends, it’s so easy and so great, I am going to share with the four of you who didn’t already know this.
Here we go:
Equipment: medium Dutch oven, metal steamer, large spoon, medium mixing bowl
Ingredients: 6-8 eggs at room temperature, ice, cold water
1. Place steamer in the Dutch oven and add enough water to come to the steamer’s bottom. Remove the steamer. Turn the eye on high and cover until it’s rip-roaring with a boil.
2. Place eggs in the steamer basket. Turn the stove eye off. Place the steamer/eggs in the Dutch oven. Turn the heat to medium-high. Cover and steam your eggs for 15 minutes. If you’ve put more than 6 eggs in the basket, let it go another 2 minutes.
3. While eggs are steaming, put mixing bowl in the sink, add 2 trays of ice cubes. Pour cold water into bowl about half-way up.
4. When your timer goes off, carefully uncover the eggs, lift the steamer and, with your large spoon, place eggs one at a time into the ice-cold water. Leave them to chill 20 minutes.
5. Now it’s time to peel them your favorite way. The TV cooks said to drain the water and knock the eggs around in the bowl to crack them. I prefer to take the large spoon and tap all over the outside of the egg, then slide my thumb under a successful abrasion to begin peeling.
Regardless of how you peel, you’re going to peel like a Gold-medal Olympian. Never in my life have I experienced such joy as the ease this technique provides, plus the inside egg is beautifully golden (without that ugly gray or greenish color produced when you boil them).
And so, before you prepare those eggs for Easter, think about how much easier the dyed eggs (and successive generations of eggs in your kitchen) will peel by this technique.
I really want to call Joe and tell him I know his secret. But bless his soul, quite literally, my cell service doesn’t reach that far into Heaven. Regardless, Joe, I know. 🙂
Photos: Patsy R. Brumfield
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