"hard boiled eggs" news and stories

Easter-egg time is not the time to mess up the hard-boiled eggs. And, sure, you may think you've got it down pat. But here's the thing: If you cook those eggs beautifully now, after Easter has come and gone, you'll have perfect hard-cooked eggs to simply salt and eat or make into egg salad, potato salad, or a bunch of other delicious dishes. (Get a dozen recipes for leftover Easter eggs here.)

Hard-Boiled Eggs
Brown shells are thicker than white shells, and thus more crack-resistant, making them ideal for hard-boiling. There's no other differences between white and brown eggs -- they just come from different breeds of hen.

Cover the eggs with an inch of water, and then remove the eggs. Bring the water to a boil, and lower the eggs into the water with a spoon or tongs. The boil will die down, but when it resumes, lower the heat and simmer the eggs to your desired doneness (about 10 minutes). Experiment with timing to find what works best for you (you can cook them up to 15 minutes).

A pinhole in the tip of the egg will keep the shell from cracking due to trapped air.

Drain hot water and fill pan with cold water. Allow eggs to sit in cold water in order to stop the cooking process.

Watch a video on how to cook eggs.

Find out all about eggs: how to soft boil, hard boil, fry, scramble, bake and more in KitchenDaily's "How to Cook Eggs."

Deviled eggs, a fixture on the appetizer circuit, can give your holiday guests a delicious start to the Thanksgiving feast.

Slicing hard-cooked eggs can be messy because the yolk tends to crumble. Check out this clever tip.

I once had a boyfriend who could not tolerate the taste or smell of hard boiled eggs. I remember learning this the hard way, after I had made a really terrific, labor-intensive salmon salad (with freshly poached salmon, not canned). We sat down to eat, and as he put the fork into his mouth, a terrible looked passed across his face and he looked like he was about to retch. The fork beat a hasty retreat back to the plate, and he looked at me with a very serious expression on his face and asked, "Does this have hard boiled eggs in it?"

These days I try to ferret out whether someone is a picky eater before I get too attached, but I've discovered that just about everyone has that one thing that they just can't stand to eat. For some folks, it has to do with a texture and for others it's the association that makes it objectionable. My mom doesn't care for pepper and my dad hates the combination of crunchy and creamy (think ice cream with candy bits in it). My list is fairly short, consisting only of shrimp (as I have a highly inconvenient allergy).

What's your objectionable ingredient? Has your list gotten short as you've gotten older? How do you handle it if you are served something that contains this item?

This post inspired by a question on Serious Eats' Food and Drink forum.

photo by Marisa McClellan

Not all single-purpose kitchen gadgets are useless, but slicers are getting out of control. There are slicers for avocados, tomatoes, eggs, butter and mozzarella, just to name a few from Williams-Sonoma. While the avocado slicer has a slightly different look, the other four have the exact same design in slightly different shapes. And you don't need any of them. All of those foods are exceptionally easy to slice through with a sharp knife and the scooping function of the avocado slicer can be replicated with a spoon.

If none of your knives can handle tasks like slicing tomatoes or hard-boiled eggs, you don't need a gadget. You need a new knife. Trust me - you'll get a lot more use out of it.