Deviled eggs * how to hard-boil an egg

Deviled Eggs

6 hard-boiled eggs, shelled

about ¼ c. mayonnaise

about ¼ tsp yellow mustard

pepper and/or paprika

Cut the shelled eggs in half lengthwise. Remove yolks with a spoon and put into a small bowl.

Mash the yolks with the edge of the spoon until they’re very finely crumbled. Mix in the mayonnaise and mustard until they taste right. Spoon the yolk mixture back into the whites. Sprinkle with pepper and/or paprika to garnish and add flavor.

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make deviled eggs. Summertime picnics and cookouts are coming up and you want to be prepared!

Deviled eggs are easy to make. The hardest part is boiling the eggs without overcooking them. Even if you overcook a boiled egg, it’ll be okay, but getting it just right results in a better tasting and better looking egg. You’ve seen boiled eggs where the yolk is sort of greenish around the edges, right? And it’s tough? That’s an overcooked egg.

You’ll need one pot with a lid for this recipe. Choose however many eggs you plan to boil and place them gently in the pot. Then run water over them until they’re covered by a good half-inch or more of water.

You don’t need to warm your eggs to room temperature before plunking them in the pot. You don’t need to salt the water. You don’t need to do anything except put them in a pot of water.

Place the pot on the stove over high heat. Don’t cover the pot, just keep an eye on it while you do other stuff around the kitchen. When the water is at a full boil—that is, when big blobs of agitated water are pushing the eggs around constantly—move the pot off the heat. Put the lid on the pot, set your timer for 15 minutes, and don’t touch the pot until the timer goes off.

While you’re waiting, prepare the egg’s ice bath. Grab a mixing bowl or another pot and partly fill it with ice. Then add enough water to roughly cover the ice. Make sure you have enough room in the bowl or pot to add the eggs without it overflowing.

As soon as your timer goes off, remove the lid from the egg pot and carefully pour the hot water into the sink. Then use a spoon to carefully move the eggs into the ice bath.

Let the eggs sit in the ice bath for ten or fifteen minutes. Every so often, give the icewater a stir and add more ice if necessary as it melts. After ten or fifteen minutes, remove the eggs. They are done. You can either put them in the fridge to peel and prepare later, or you can peel them now and use them.

This method of boiling eggs is a lot more involved than you may be used to, but it’s also a lot easier than it sounds. It takes time, but it’s almost completely hands-off so you can do other stuff while the eggs are cooking or cooling down. And when it’s time to peel the eggs, they’re cool so you won’t scald yourself or drop any eggs because they’re just too hot. The ice bath is critical, because it stops the eggs from overcooking.

Here are some tips about eggs from someone who used to keep pet hens. I always buy cage-free eggs or eggs from local farmers, and usually those eggs are brown. Brown eggs are no better or worse for you than white eggs. The shell color depends on the breed of chicken. When you break open a brown egg, sometimes you’ll find little spots of rusty color around the yolk. That’s just pigment and is perfectly normal. Sometimes when you break open an egg of any color, you’ll find a spot of blood inside. That isn’t a dead chicken embryo, it’s just a spot where a capillary broke in the hen’s egg canal while the egg was forming, and a little drop of blood was incorporated into the egg. The hen wasn’t hurt and it won’t change the flavor or quality of the egg. When you buy eggs from the supermarket, eggs with spots of