When life gives you eggs, attempt to boil them and fail miserably
This week, in honor of my MOM's BIRTHDAY! (HappyBirthdayandIloveyouMom) I took another step towards self-sufficiency.
In a weird way, I can also list this as a tribute to my colleague Oliver, who happens to share a birthday with my mother and a general dislike for cooking with me. Where we really differ is in our love of eggs. I love them. They hate him (allergies).
Feeling hungry and comfortable in the flat the other night, I looked in the kitchen to see what things in there I could possibly consume. I started with a bowl of cereal, then ate 30 or so spoonfuls of peanut butter. But I wasn't finished -- we had 3 eggs left: 2 in one carton, on in the other.
It seemed like a good time to learn how to hard-boil an egg.
For those accomplished chefs out there (and also for most with opposable thumbs), boiling an egg is the easiest thing to do in the world. For that reason I want to be very specific in explaining how I went 0 for 3 in successfully hard-boiling one.
Egg #1: I was a little rough with this one. I dropped it in the boiling water gently enough, but the water wasn't quite deep enough and it cracked slightly on the bottom of the pot. This caused exactly the type of messiness (water + yoke + whites) that usually keeps me out of the kitchen. Still, I persevered.
Egg #2: This was a no win. The carton listed an expiration date of September. Prior to reading this I had no idea eggs could expire. It all seems so perfectly contained and regulated. This egg, boiled or not, was never going to be good.
Egg #3: This was a good egg in terms of the egg life-cycle, and I gently placed it in the pot, even given the distracting egg yoke filthiness than muddled the boiling water. The problem here was my inability to gauge 3 minutes. I'm an impatient guy, especially when it comes to food. So maybe I shortchanged it a little bit and it ended up soft-boiled.
I ate some more peanut butter and headed to bed. Still a bit hungry, but also a bit fuller of non-delicious, in no way as satisfying as a hard-boiled egg, experience.
3 comments:
FYI, for a Beigel-style hard-boiled, boil 8-9 minutes (depending on whether your water is boiling from the start or not).
You could have it soft boiled, with a really runny yoke (3 minutes) and you can dip thin slices of bread in it: toast a slice of bread, butter it up with salted butter and cut the toast in 4 or 5 stripes for a nice dipping exercise.
Your last option is the almost hard boiled egg (6 min) when the yoke is dense but not hard - kind of a semi but in a good way - making for a nice gooey texture...
I left out the poached option. Not for another 29 years. We'll talk about the fried options when you have a saucepan in your cupboard...
G-dawg
P.S: Salt the water heavily before lowering the egg in. It helps with not cracking/retaining the whites insinde the egg if slightly cracked.
Okay I've looked at this post so many times (hoping you'd put up something new!) that I might as well comment. Next time put the egg GENTLY into the pan first, THEN cover with water and bring to a boil. Once the water is boiling, remove it from the heat and let it sit covered for about 15 minutes. Takes longer but no cracked or undercooked eggs this way.
Now PLEASE give me something new to read. A little brainstorming to get you going: your thoughts on new spring fashions in London, your imagined life story of the person who stood in front of you in line at the market, or perhaps thoughts on why snickers really does (or does not) satisfy you. Please. Something.
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