Eggs

I never really thought that you needed a recipe for hard-boiled eggs. Just dump them in some water, let them boil for awhile, and try not to forget to remove them from the stovetop before the water boils away and the eggs stick to the bottom of the pot (not that I've ever done that, of course... that's what kitchen timers are for, right?).

However, I recently finished reading "The Kitchen Daughter" by Jael McHenry, in which food plays a large role in the life of the main character. Most chapters begin with a recipe card for a particular food item, and one of these recipes was for hard-boiled eggs. The process is pretty simple: place eggs in cold water, add a pinch of baking soda, bring to a boil, turn off heat, let eggs sit for 12 minutes, and then peel.

I decided to try this out with my most recent batch of eggs rather than just letting them percolate for 25-40 minutes or so as I usually do, and I must admit that the results are impressive. All of the eggs are cooked beautifully and are very easy to peel, which isn't always the case (though I store them in the fridge in the shell until ready to eat rather than peeling them ahead of time). I forgot the baking soda part of the process, and I'm not sure how that would really affect the results, but I may try the full recipe next time, just as an experiment.

And a side benefit of this particular method is that it's more environmentally friendly, since the stove-top is only actively pulling power for 12 minutes instead of 25+ minutes!