The perfect boiled egg.

Jacques Pepin ^ | 4/8/09 | Nikos Vlachos

[nikos1121]

Just before the November Elections for a light break I asked FRs to share their method for the perfect boiled egg. It was a fun and lively discussion.

I recently found this method from Jacques Pepin, the French guy who hung out with Julia Childs.

I wanted to share his method with you. Try it exactly as he says.

Ordinarily, we Americans are used to eating hard boil eggs that are improperly cooked. The white is hard and there's this blue tinge around the yolk which is sulfur and what gives the eggs their odor and bad taste.

We don't even know that we're eating something that could be so much better with just a little bit of effort.

Here's Pepin's method. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

1. Add water to a pot that will just cover the eggs and heat to boiling.

2. While water is warming up, take a thumb tack and pierce a small hole in the round end of each egg. (Yes, you heard me right...just do it. :-) ) If you hold the egg firmly in the left hand and pierce with the right, you should have no problem.

3. When the water is boiling add the eggs to the boiling water. You will see air coming out of the little hole.

4. Set timer for exactly 10 minutes. You can turn the heat down a tad so it's a "soft" boil, but you want them in this bath for the full 10 minutes.

5. Fill another bowl with water and add ice cubes.

6. After 10 minutes pour off the water and swirl the eggs in the empty pan to crack the shells... YES, crack 'em!

7. Dump the eggs in the ice bath for at least 8 minutes.

8. Peel the eggs under running water.

The eggs should be perfect. The outside firm not hard, the inside yellow and semi firm without any hint of blue around the yolk. The taste should be delicious.

If you go to the link you will not only see Pepin boiling the perfect egg, you will see him cook asparagus perfectly and a red pepper dip and potatoes au gratin...

I hope it takes your mind off the stresses of our lives right now.

For me it's the stress of the unknown.

I lived through the Jimmy Carter years. I was just married. Inflation 20% I couldn't get a mortgage to buy a house unless I wanted to pay 18%.

I recall old people lined up to buy Money Market Accounts and to sell their silver dollars.

I remember his turning on the Shah of Iran...not even allowing this fine ma and ally to come to the USA, Mayo's, to be treated for his terminal cancer.

We are where we are right now with terrorism andthreat of nuclear holocaust, because of Jimmy Carter. We all on FR know this.

So anyway. Please enjoy a pleasant diversion, and share it with someone you love...

nikos

[Travis T. OJustice]

LOL!

[Ex-Episcopalian]

Making hard-cooked eggs for egg salad or potato salad.....

1. Go to salad bar at the grocery store.
2. Fill a take-out container with hard-cooked eggs.
3. Take eggs home and chop them up.

[nikos1121]

See post 51. Someone posted that he went to Mayo’s. Mayo’s, New York etc. I don’t think it matters. Carter refused his entry until Kissinger and others interceded.

The fact that Carter made him leave is a disgrace. Total disgrace. And what did it do for Carter, nothing. Tehran gave him the finger anyway.

Nothing gets my anger up more than Jimmy Carter. This generation has forgotton things that they will need to relearn under Obama. You have a weak minded presidency and it leads to our weakness in the world, and the outcome is usually at our expense.

Already, Obama is cozying up his rhetoric with North Korea, Iran, Russia and all the other Anti Isreal terrorist groups out there.

[wideminded]

See post 51. Someone posted that he went to Mayo’s.

That was me quoting Wikipedia as saying that he went to the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota). Some more research showed that was not the case. That's the second major error I've seen on Wikipedia in two days.

Nothing gets my anger up more than Jimmy Carter.

I try not to get so angry that I start believing stuff that isn't true.

I'm probably not qualified to judge whether the Shah was a "good man", but one thing I remember from about 1978 was meeting a student from Iran. He appeared to be in a state of shock after hearing that the Shah's security forces had just machine-gunned a student demonstration in his homeland.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Deliberately cracking and de-shelling the eggs won’t do for Easter eggs.

Otherwise, it’d be worth a try just for plain eggs.

[nikos1121]

I'm probably not qualified to judge whether the Shah was a "good man", but one thing I remember from about 1978 was meeting a student from Iran. I was a resident at Cook County at that time. My attending was from Iran or Persia as he would put it. He was the nicest most patient man I had ever met. He talked calmly about how much the Shah had done for his country, but in later years how he had cracked down on student protests etc. It was like when you rebel against your parents as a teenager once they give you a taste of freedom with the car, and then they take it away from you. He too, was upset about the killing of some students, just as we had our Kent State. I can ASSURE you that your friend and my friend probably have never returned to Iran and long for the days when the Shah was alive. Iran was one of the richest countries in the world and had one of the largest milataries. It had writers, scientists, poets, musicians etc. Khomeini killed them all unless they had fled the country. The terrorist problems of today can be traced back to the Carter years and his passivity. I think in time we will find more proof that Carter was a communist sympathizer. ONe thing is that with forums like this, Obama won't get to far if he tries to do the same things that Carter did.

[nikos1121]

Oops! Messed up the italics..

“I’m probably not qualified to judge whether the Shah was a “good man”, but one thing I remember from about 1978 was meeting a student from Iran.”

I was a resident at Cook County at that time. My attending was from Iran or Persia as he would put it. He was the nicest most patient man I had ever met. He talked calmly about how much the Shah had done for his country, but in later years how he had cracked down on student protests etc. It was like when you rebel against your parents as a teenager once they give you a taste of freedom with the car, and then they take it away from you. He too, was upset about the killing of some students, just as we had our Kent State. I can ASSURE you that your friend and my friend probably have never returned to Iran and long for the days when the Shah was alive. Iran was one of the richest countries in the world and had one of the largest milataries. It had writers, scientists, poets, musicians etc. Khomeini killed them all unless they had fled the country. The terrorist problems of today can be traced back to the Carter years and his passivity. I think in time we will find more proof that Carter was a communist sympathizer. ONe thing is that with forums like this, Obama won’t get to far if he tries to do the same things that Carter did.

[firebrand]

Yes, it is great. Next: What to do with the hard-cooked eggs once you have them.

[firebrand]

Excellent suggestion, except that someone always takes the yolks out of the hard-cooked eggs at my local salad bar. Bunch of hard-cooked whites sitting there in a little pool of water. Yum.

[nikos1121]

Double your dose of Lipitor and eat them...

[Ex-Episcopalian]

You said.........

...someone always takes the yolks out of the hard-cooked eggs at my local salad bar. Bunch of hard-cooked whites sitting there in a little pool of water...

That’s disgusting! The salad bar at my Giant has them just as if you had stuck them in one of those little egg-slicer things.