Boiled eggs are
eggs, typically from a
chicken, cooked with their shells unbroken, usually by immersion in boiling water. Hard-boiled eggs are cooked so that the
egg white
Egg white is the clear liquid (also called the albumen or the glair/glaire) contained within an egg. In chickens it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms arou ...
and
egg yolk
Among animals which produce eggs, the yolk (; also known as the vitellus) is the nutrient-bearing portion of the egg whose primary function is to supply food for the development of the embryo. Some types of egg contain no yolk, for example bec ...
both solidify, while soft-boiled eggs may leave the yolk, and sometimes the white, at least partially liquid and raw. Boiled eggs are a popular
breakfast
Breakfast is the first meal of the day usually eaten in the morning. The word in English refers to breaking the fasting period of the previous night.Anderson, Heather Arndt (2013)''Breakfast: A History'' AltaMira Press. Various "typical" or "t ...
food around the world.
Besides a boiling water immersion, there are a few different methods to make boiled eggs. Eggs can also be cooked below the boiling temperature, i.e.
coddling, or they can be steamed. The
egg timer was named for commonly being used to time the boiling of eggs.
Variations
There are variations both in degree of cooking and in the method of how eggs are boiled, and a variety of
kitchen gadget
A kitchen utensil is a small hand held tool used for food preparation. Common kitchen tasks include cutting food items to size, heating food on an open fire or on a stove, baking, grinding, mixing, blending, and measuring; different utensils a ...
s for eggs exist. These variations include:
;Piercing: Some pierce the shell beforehand with an
egg piercer
An egg piercer pierces the air pocket of an eggshell with a small needle to keep the shell from cracking during hard-boiling. If both ends of the shell are pierced, the egg can be blown out while preserving the shell (for crafts). Examples of egg ...
to prevent cracking. Ekelund ''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.
[The American Egg Board, an industry group, recommends against piercing shells on food safety grounds: "Piercing shells before cooking is not recommended. If not sterile, the piercer or needle can introduce bacteria into the egg. Also, piercing creates hairline cracks in the shell through which bacteria can enter after cooking."]
Basic Hard-Cooked Eggs
, American Egg Board
;Steaming: Eggs can be taken straight from the refrigerator and placed in the
steamer at full steam.
;Sous vide: Boiled eggs can be made by cooking/coddling in their shell "
sous vide" in hot water at steady temperatures anywhere from . The outer egg white cooks at and the yolk and the rest of the white sets from .
;Baked eggs: Baking eggs in an oven instead of boiling in water.
Soft-boiled eggs
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.
Soft-boiled eggs are not recommended for people who may be susceptible to
salmonella
''Salmonella'' is a genus of rod-shaped (bacillus) Gram-negative bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae. The two species of ''Salmonella'' are ''Salmonella enterica'' and ''Salmonella bongori''. ''S. enterica'' is the type species and is fur ...
, such as very young children, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems. To avoid the issue of salmonella,
eggs can be pasteurised in shell at 57 °C for an hour and 15 minutes. The eggs can then be soft-boiled as normal.
Soft-boiled eggs are commonly served in
egg cups, where the top of the egg is cut off with a knife, spoon, spring-loaded egg topper, or egg scissors, using an
egg spoon to scoop the egg out. Other methods include breaking the
eggshell
An eggshell is the outer covering of a hard-shelled egg and of some forms of eggs with soft outer coats.
Diversity
Worm eggs
Nematode eggs present a two layered structure: an external vitellin layer made of chitin that confers mechanical ...
by tapping gently around the top of the shell with a spoon. Soft-boiled eggs can be eaten with
toast
Toast most commonly refers to:
* Toast (food), bread browned with dry heat
* Toast (honor), a ritual in which a drink is taken
Toast may also refer to:
Places
* Toast, North Carolina, a census-designated place in the United States
Books
* '' ...
cut into strips, which are then dipped into the runny yolk. In the United Kingdom and Australia, these strips of toast are known as "
soldiers
A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer.
Etymology
The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...
".
In Southeast Asia, a variation of soft-boiled eggs known as half-boiled eggs are commonly eaten at breakfast. The major difference is that, instead of the egg being served in an egg cup, it is cracked into a bowl to which dark or light soy sauce or pepper are added. The egg is also cooked for a shorter period of time resulting in a runnier egg instead of the usual gelatin state and is commonly eaten with
Kaya toast,
Kopi O, or
Milo chocolate milk.
Boiled eggs are also an ingredient in various
Philippine dishes, such as
embutido,
pancit,
relleno,
galantina, and many others.
In Japan, soft-boiled eggs are commonly served alongside
ramen. The eggs are typically steeped in a mixture of soy sauce,
mirin, and water after being boiled and peeled. This provides the egg a brownish color that would otherwise be absent from boiling and peeling the eggs alone. Once the eggs have finished steeping, they are served either in the soup or on the side.
Hard-boiled eggs
Overcooked egg showing green coating on yolk
Hard-boiled eggs are boiled long enough for the yolk to solidify.
They can be eaten warm or cold. Hard-boiled eggs are the basis for many dishes, such as
egg salad,
cobb salad
The Cobb salad is a main-dish American garden salad typically made with chopped salad greens (iceberg lettuce, watercress, endives and romaine lettuce), tomato, crisp bacon, fried chicken breast, hard-boiled eggs, avocado, chives, blue cheese, ...
and
Scotch eggs, and may be further prepared as
deviled eggs.
There are several theories as to the proper technique of hard-boiling an egg, depending on circumstances. One method is to bring water to a boil and cook for ten minutes. Another method is to bring the water to a boil, but then remove the pan from the heat and allow eggs to cook in the gradually cooling water.
Over-cooking eggs will typically result in a thin green
iron(II) sulfide coating on the yolk. This reaction occurs more rapidly in older eggs as the whites are more alkaline. Immersing the egg in cold water after boiling is a common method of halting the cooking process to prevent this effect.
It also causes a slight shrinking of the contents of the egg.
Hard-boiled eggs should be used within two hours if kept at room temperature or can be used for a week if kept refrigerated and in the shell.
Hard-boiled eggs are commonly sliced, particularly for use in sandwiches. For this purpose specialized
egg slicers exist, to ease slicing and yield even slices. For consistent slice sizes in food service, several eggs may have their yolk and white separated and poured into a cylindrical mold for stepwise hard-boiling, to produce what is known as a "long egg" or an "egg loaf". Commercial long eggs are produced in Denmark by its inventor and in Japan by . The machine for producing long eggs was first introduced in 1974. In addition to being sliced, long eggs can also be used in their entirety in
gala pie
A pork pie is a traditional English meat pie, usually served either at room temperature or cold (although often served hot in Yorkshire). It consists of a filling of roughly chopped pork and pork fat, surrounded by a layer of jellied pork stock ...
s.
Peeling
Boiled eggs can vary widely in how easy it is to peel away the shells. In general, the fresher an egg before boiling, the more difficult it is to separate the shell cleanly from the egg white.
As a fresh egg ages, it gradually loses both moisture and carbon dioxide through pores in the shell; as a consequence, the contents of the egg shrink and the
pH of the
albumen
Egg white is the clear liquid (also called the albumen or the glair/glaire) contained within an egg. In chickens it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms arou ...
becomes more
basic
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
. Albumen with higher pH (more basic) is less likely to stick to the egg shell, while pockets of air develop in eggs that have lost significant amounts of moisture, also making eggs easier to peel. Keeping the cooked eggs soaked in water helps keep the membrane under the egg shell moisturized for easy peeling. Peeling the egg under cold running water is an effective method of removing the shell. Starting the cooking in hot water also makes the egg easier to peel.
It is often claimed that steaming eggs in a
pressure cooker
Pressure cooking is the process of cooking food under high pressure steam and water or a water-based cooking liquid, in a sealed vessel known as a ''pressure cooker''. High pressure limits boiling, and creates higher cooking temperatures which c ...
makes them easier to peel.
Double blind testing
In a blind or blinded experiment, information which may influence the participants of the experiment is withheld until after the experiment is complete. Good blinding can reduce or eliminate experimental biases that arise from a participants' expec ...
has failed to show any advantage of pressure cooking over steaming, and has further shown that starting boiling in cold water is counterproductive. Shocking the eggs by rapidly cooling them helped, and cooling them in ice water for 15 minutes or longer gave more successful peeling. Shocking was also found to remove the dimple in the base of the egg caused by the air space.
[How to Make Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs , The Food Lab](_blank)
Seriouseats.com (29 July 2020). Retrieved on 2021-06-29.
Dishes featuring boiled eggs
Boiled eggs often form part of larger, more elaborate dishes. For example, a boiled egg may garnish a bowl of
ramen (often first marinated in
soy sauce
Soy sauce (also called simply soy in American English and soya sauce in British English) is a liquid condiment of Chinese origin, traditionally made from a fermented paste of soybeans, roasted grain, brine, and '' Aspergillus oryzae'' or ''Asp ...
), be baked into a pie such as a
torta pasqualina
Torta is a culinary term that can, depending on the cuisine, refer to cakes, pies, flatbreads, sandwiches, or omelettes.
Usually, it refers to:
* cake or pie in South America, much of Europe, and southern Philippines
* flatbread in Spain
* a t ...
, or be encased in
aspic (similar to the French dish œufs en gelée, which features poached eggs
), be chopped and mixed with mayonnaise to form
egg salad, or be deep-fried and then baked within a serving of
Lamprais.
See also
*
Coddled egg
*
Deviled egg
*
Egg piercer
An egg piercer pierces the air pocket of an eggshell with a small needle to keep the shell from cracking during hard-boiling. If both ends of the shell are pierced, the egg can be blown out while preserving the shell (for crafts). Examples of egg ...
*
Haminados
*
List of egg dishes
*
Pickled beet egg
Pickled beet eggs are hard boiled eggs that are cured in a brine
Brine is a high-concentration solution of salt (NaCl) in water (H2O). In diverse contexts, ''brine'' may refer to the salt solutions ranging from about 3.5% (a typical con ...
*
Tea egg
*
Notes
References
External links
Basic Hard-Cooked Eggs American Egg Board
Boiling an Egg – Science BackgroundBoiling of eggs for molecular gastronomers* wiki articles on how to
boil an egg,
poach an egg, and
soft boil an egg. An overview of all processes for
boiling eggs.
{{Eggs
Egg dishes