In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto demonstrates the best ways to boil eggs at home. Whether you want soft, jammy, or hard-boiled, follow Frank's steps to get the eggs you want every time.
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00:00I'm Frank Proto, professional chef and culinary instructor,
00:02and today I'm gonna show you the best way
00:04to boil eggs at home.
00:05We're talking soft-boiled, jammy, and hard-boiled.
00:08This is How to Boil Eggs 101.
00:11If you ask 100 chefs how they do their boiled eggs,
00:14you'll get 100 different answers.
00:15So today we're just gonna really go over the way
00:17that I do my boiled egg.
00:19If you keep a few tips and techniques in mind,
00:21you'll pretty much get a perfect yolk every single time.
00:26Normally with soft-boiled eggs,
00:27you get an egg cup and a spoon.
00:29And it's eaten out of the shell, right?
00:31We just basically get the egg,
00:33we take the top off, put it in our egg cup,
00:36and then we scoop it out with a little salt,
00:37sometimes a little butter, and we eat it like that.
00:39Soft-boiled eggs should be a super runny yolk.
00:42The whites should be just set, but not slimy.
00:46A lot of times people mess up
00:47because their whites are slimy.
00:49You want the whites set and the yolk super runny.
00:51For the most part, I like to use boiling water
00:53for my soft-boiled eggs,
00:54because if I put them in cold water,
00:57it's gonna take at least five to 10 minutes
00:59for them to boil, and in that time,
01:01they're gonna be cooking.
01:03We only really want them to cook for six minutes.
01:05So if we start with cold water,
01:06they're gonna cook for way more than six minutes.
01:08Today we have brown eggs,
01:10and brown eggs are beautifully aesthetically pleasing.
01:13They're not any healthier than white eggs.
01:15It just all depends on the breed of chicken.
01:17It doesn't really matter what type of pot you use
01:19as long as the eggs are covered with water.
01:21You don't want the eggs to be half in
01:23and half out of the water.
01:23You want them to be completely covered.
01:25So I have a bowl for my eggs to land in.
01:28I'm gonna put it right here.
01:29I have my egg cup and my spoon,
01:31and with soft-boiled eggs,
01:33you want to pretty much eat them immediately.
01:35My eggs are done.
01:36It's been six minutes.
01:38Fish them out.
01:39Just put them in a bowl.
01:40I don't put these into an ice bath
01:42because I'm gonna eat them right away.
01:44This is one of those dishes that's fairly immediate.
01:46Cook it and eat it.
01:47If you try and peel them, you will not be successful.
01:50You're gonna have an eggy mess, yolk everywhere.
01:52What we want to do is take our egg,
01:55put it into our egg cup.
01:56If you don't have an egg cup, use a shot glass.
01:59This works really well.
02:00And then I get my spoon,
02:02and I'm gonna tap around.
02:04They have tools for this called egg toppers,
02:07but we're just gonna use the spoon.
02:09And basically what we're gonna do is cut the lid out.
02:12You see how my egg white is nice and set?
02:14You can eat this part, right?
02:16You can just scoop it out and eat it.
02:19But if you look inside of this,
02:20I break open the yolk.
02:21Look at how nice and eggy and yolky that is.
02:25My egg whites are set perfectly.
02:27Make sure you get it everywhere.
02:29But that's the consistency of a soft boiled egg.
02:32A nice white that is set and a beautiful creamy yolk.
02:35Now what I would do with this
02:36is I would have some toast on the side
02:38to either dip in here
02:40or to take and scoop my egg out on the toast.
02:42Preferably buttered toast
02:43with a little bit of salt and pepper and you're done.
02:46We don't do this enough in America,
02:47but this is delicious.
02:50Now jammy eggs you tend to see a lot in ramen.
02:53They take the eggs, they cook them,
02:55they marinate them with some soy sauce.
02:57And the yolk is just getting firm.
03:00Almost like spreadable jam-like consistency.
03:03It's close to the method for the soft boiled eggs,
03:05but the timing is slightly different.
03:08If I start with cold water,
03:09they're not gonna cook the eight minutes they need to cook.
03:12It's gonna take at least five to 10 minutes
03:14for it to come up to a boil.
03:15And if the eggs are sitting in there,
03:17and the water's getting warm, they're cooking.
03:18I want to be very precise with my cooking time here.
03:21These eggs are in the boiling water for eight minutes only.
03:24For our jammy eggs, we get our eggs,
03:26put them onto your spider.
03:28What's important about these eggs is
03:30we are gonna peel them, right?
03:32So what we have to do is shock them.
03:34In culinary terms, shocking means
03:36you're taking something from a boiling liquid
03:39and we're putting it into an ice bath.
03:41I have a bath of water and ice here.
03:43I'm gonna check it out.
03:44I have a bath of water and ice here.
03:46I'm gonna chill these eggs completely
03:48before I try and peel them.
03:50When we shock items, it's gonna stop the cooking.
03:52When we cook items, they tend to carry over,
03:54which means the residual heat
03:56is gonna continue cooking that item.
03:58But when we shock, we are stopping the cooking
04:01and we're gonna kind of set it at the time
04:03that we took it out of the water.
04:04This is what's gonna allow us
04:05to get that really nice yolk consistency.
04:08So it's been eight minutes.
04:10We're gonna take these out immediately,
04:11right into the ice bath.
04:13We're gonna put them in there for about 10 to 15 minutes
04:16so that we know it's cold all the way through and through.
04:19Be patient, let them ice down all the way.
04:23So our jammy eggs have been chilling for about 15 minutes.
04:26And what I like to do with these,
04:27I leave them in the water.
04:28And what I'm gonna do is tap around, right?
04:33Just tap around.
04:35Now you'll always see there's a little air pocket
04:37in your eggs, either at the top or the bottom of your egg.
04:40And if you peel them under the water,
04:42usually that membrane comes along with it
04:45and you get a beautiful peel on your egg.
04:47Once we get under that membrane
04:48with a little bit of the water,
04:49it's so much easier to peel.
04:51One of the suggestions I have
04:52is when you're making eggs like this,
04:54always do a couple more than you think you need.
04:57If you want them to be perfect,
04:59just make a couple extra eggs.
05:00It's not really gonna hurt.
05:01Here's the moment of truth.
05:02Let's cut into this baby and see how we did.
05:05It's just barely set, lightly liquidy,
05:08a little bit spreadable, but look at that.
05:10And that's a really nice jammy egg right there.
05:13This would be a great addition to any ramen,
05:15any salad that you like eggs on.
05:18Go for it.
05:21Hard-boiled eggs are cooked all the way through.
05:24The yolk and the white are totally set.
05:26This is what you're gonna use for egg salad.
05:28It's for deviled eggs.
05:30We want the yolk to be firm all the way through.
05:33We want it to be kind of bright, pale yellow.
05:35We do not want it to be green at all.
05:37Green on the outside of the yolk
05:39usually means it's overcooked.
05:41It doesn't necessarily taste bad when they're overcooked,
05:43but aesthetically, it's not all that pleasing.
05:46Believe it or not, what I've found
05:47over years and years of boiling eggs
05:49is that the fresh eggs,
05:51you have a lot of the membrane still intact,
05:53and as eggs get older,
05:55that membrane pulls away a little more from the shell,
05:58so you get an easier peel to your eggs.
06:00I like to use eggs that are at least a week old
06:04before I start boiling them.
06:06So I start out with cold water,
06:08and I'm gonna put my cold eggs into my cold water.
06:11I'm using cold water because I want these
06:13to kind of cook in the water
06:15and cook through as the water comes up to temperature.
06:17So these are just the opposite of our jammy
06:20and our soft-boiled eggs.
06:21We want these to cook thoroughly all the way through.
06:24So that's why I start with cold water.
06:25They're gonna cook slowly
06:27and ramp up to the right temperature,
06:29and they're gonna cook all the way through.
06:31Make sure that our eggs are completely covered with water.
06:34Put them on high and let it come to a boil,
06:36then lower to a simmer for about eight minutes.
06:40We're almost at a simmer.
06:41We're lightly bubbling away, and that's what I want.
06:43I don't want this at a full rolling boil
06:46because then the eggs would kind of jump around
06:47and hit each other.
06:48Letting them simmer for eight minutes
06:50and then letting them sit for eight minutes
06:51is gonna ensure that they're cooked,
06:53but it's also gonna be a gentle cook.
06:55You're not gonna get that green ring around my eggs.
06:58So my hard-boiled eggs have been simmering
07:00for about eight minutes.
07:01I can shut the heat off,
07:02and all I really wanna do here
07:03is take them off of the heat
07:05and put them aside in the hot water
07:07for another eight minutes.
07:09I'm gonna bring this over to the sink.
07:11I'm gonna drain the hot water out.
07:13I'm just gonna let some cold water run over them
07:16for a few minutes to make sure that they chill lightly,
07:20and then we can peel them.
07:21While these eggs cool down, I have a raw egg here,
07:24and I have a boiled egg or a hard-boiled egg here.
07:27And I wanna show you a quick trick
07:28that I learned back in culinary school.
07:31So I take my egg that is not cooked,
07:33and I try and spin it like a top.
07:36And because it's liquid inside,
07:38it doesn't really spin all that well.
07:40It spins okay.
07:41Take an egg that is hard-boiled.
07:43See how it spins like a top?
07:45This is how you know your egg
07:46is actually cooked all the way through.
07:48So I've cracked my shells on my eggs,
07:50and basically I'm just gonna peel them under the water.
07:53Make sure we get under that membrane.
07:55Once we get water under that membrane,
07:57it is really easy to peel.
07:59Dry it off, put it on our plate.
08:01Now, there's a lot of different methods out there
08:03on how to peel hard-boiled eggs,
08:05but I find if you usually start
08:07where there's that air bubble,
08:08usually it comes off a lot easier.
08:11Moment of truth here.
08:12There we go.
08:13Perfectly cooked egg.
08:15Yolk in the center, bright yellow.
08:17No green, a bright yellow yolk.
08:19It's perfect.
08:20Not overcooked, just beautiful.
08:22Let me get a bite.
08:27Delicious.
08:27The yolk is a little crumbly, but not dry.
08:30Hard-boiled eggs for me is,
08:31I eat them for protein in the morning sometime, right?
08:34Deviled eggs, egg salad.
08:36There's so many different things you can do with this.
08:38This is a super versatile ingredient,
08:40and it's always good to have something like this
08:41in your fridge.
08:42Just boil off a couple of eggs
08:44in case you wanna get a little quick bite to eat.
08:46Even though everyone thinks that boiling eggs are so simple,
08:49it is something that does take a little bit of finesse.
08:52You have to take your time, you have to be patient,
08:55and you might have to do a few different tests
08:57to see what works for you.
08:58If you have other methods that work for you,
09:00please just go with it.
09:02But these are the best methods
09:03that I have found that work for me.