PSA: How to boil an egg. Seriously.

We eat a lot of hard boiled eggs - in salads, as snacks, for deviled eggs.  Heck, sometimes my dinner is just a hard boiled egg and a hunk of sharp cheddar cheese.  But I hate peeling them!  With as many as I peel, you'd think I'd be really good at it.  It doesn't seem like rocket science, but I've tried various methods in my 36 years and none have made much of a different.

Until now.

The secret?

Drum roll please.....

...

...

...

You don't boil.... you STEAM them!  Turns out it really isn't rocket science!  Here's how you do it.

1)  Place a cheapo steamer basket into a pot big enough to hold your eggs.  Fill it with water until it just reaches the bottom of the steamer basket.

2) Bring water to a boil.

3)  Place eggs in, like so...

4) Put a tight lid on, set timer for 12-15 minutes and let it go - don't lift the lid!  The water will stay at a hard boil, but it's the steam that actually cooks the eggs.  (I started with 12 minutes and they were fine, but a little soft in the middle.  If you like firmer yolks, you'll probably need to go the full 15 minutes.)

5) Put eggs in ice water immediate after the 15 minutes is up.  Use right away or transfer to fridge.

6) Commence peeling.  Here's a trick I discovered about a year ago and combined with steaming, it makes for really easy peeling.  Break the shell around the middle in three different places.  Then lay the egg on the counter and roll it around to create fine cracks all over the shell.  (Just hard enough to crack the shell, but not the egg underneath.).  Then find a starting point, get under the filmy membrane and peel away.  The shell usually comes off in two or three pieces for me, almost like a ribbon.  Like this...

 See how the shell looks like snake skin?  That's all of those little cracks you created from rolling it on the counter and thus separating the shell from the egg.

If you're not a hard boiled egg eater, you've probably moved on from this post already.  But if you are a hard-boiled egg eater, you should give this method a try next time!