Boiled egg
Soft-boiled eggs
Serving temperature Room temperature (for more even cooking and to prevent cracking) or from a refrigerator; eggs may be left out overnight to come to room temperature. Piercing Some pierce the eggs beforehand with an egg piercer to prevent cracking. There is much debate on this subject. Ekelund[who?] et al. in Why eggs should not be pierced claimed that pricking caused egg white proteins to be damaged and was therefore to be discouraged. Others, including the American Egg Board, recommend against this, as it can introduce bacteria and create hairline cracks in the shell through which bacteria can enter the egg. Vinegar Some add vinegar to the water (as is sometimes done with poached eggs) to prevent the white from billowing in case of cracking. For this purpose, table salt can also be used. Placing in water There are various ways to place the eggs in the boiling water and remove: one may place the eggs in the pan prior to heating, lower them in on a spoon, or use a specialized cradle to lower them in. A cradle is also advocated as reducing cracking, since the eggs do not then roll around loose. To remove, one may allow the water to cool, pour off the boiling water, or remove the cradle. Steaming Eggs can be taken straight from the refrigerator and placed in the steamer at full steam. The eggs will not crack due to sudden change in temperatures. At full steam, "soft-boiled" eggs can be ready in about 6 minutes and "hard-boiled" eggs in about twice that time. However due to variations in the starting temperature and the size of the egg as well as the altitude of the location (longer needed for higher altitudes), these times can only be an approximation. Sous vide Rather than cooking in boiling water, boiled eggs can be made by cooking/coddling in their shell "sous vide" in hot water at steady temperatures anywhere from 60 to 85 °C (140 to 185 °F). It turns out that the outer egg white cooks at 75 °C (167 °F) and the yolk and the rest of the white sets from 60 to 65 °C (140 to 149 °F). Cooking times There is substantial variation, with cooking time being the primary variable affecting doneness (soft-boiled vs. hard-boiled). It usually varies from 10–17 minutes for large hard-boiled eggs, 1–4 minutes for large soft-cooked eggs. Depending on altitude above sea level and humidity densities in a given climate, one may require extended amounts of time to reach the soft-boiled stage, and in fact, may never reach a fully hard stage. Cooking temperatures In addition to cooking at a rolling boil (at 100 °C (212 °F)), one may instead add the egg before a boil is reached, remove water from heat after a boil is reached, or attempt to maintain a temperature below boiling, the latter all variants of coddling. Cooling After eggs are removed from heat, some cooking continues to occur, particularly of the yolk, due to residual heat, a phenomenon called carry over cooking, also seen in roast meat. For this reason some allow eggs to cool in air or plunge them into cold water as the final stage of preparation. If time is limited, adding a few cubes of ice will quickly reduce the temperature for easy handling. Service Boiled eggs may be served loose, in an eggcup, in an indentation in a plate (particularly a presentation platter of deviled eggs), cut with a knife widthwise, cut lengthwise, cut with a knife or tapped open with a spoon at either end, or peeled (and optionally sliced, particularly if hard-boiled, either manually or with an egg slicer). Baked eggs Baking eggs in an oven instead of boiling in water. Baked eggs (350 °F (177 °C) for 1/2 hour in a muffin tin, cool in ice water) are identical to boiled eggs but the shells peel more easily.[citation needed] Chef Heston Blumenthal, after "relentless trials", published a recipe for "the perfect boiled egg" suggesting cooking the egg in water that starts cold and covers the egg by no more than a millimeter, removing the pan from the heat as soon as the water starts to bubble. After six minutes, the egg will be ready.
Boiled egg-4