I always thought that all I had to do to hard cook eggs was toss them in boiling water, but according to the American Egg Board, this is wrong! Here's how they say we should hard cook eggs:

1) Put the eggs in one layer on the bottom of the pan or pot. Put the pan in the sink. Run water into the pan until the water is 1" over the eggs. Put the pan on a burner. Turn it to medium high heat.

2) Let the water come to a boil. Put the lid on the pan when the water is boiling. Move the pan onto a cold burner. Set the timer for 15 minutes for large eggs, 12 minutes for medium eggs, or 18 minutes for extra large eggs).

3) Put the pan in the sink when the time is up. Run cold water into the pan until the eggs are cool. Put the eggs into the refrigerator if you're going to use them later. Be sure to use all the cooked eggs up within a week.

4) To peel, cool the egg and gently tap it on the countertop or table until it has cracks in it. Roll the egg between your hands until the cracks turn into small crackles all over the egg.

5) Use your fingers to start peeling off the shell at the large end of the egg. If you need to, you can hold the egg under running cold water or dip it in a bowl of water to make peeling easier. Throw out the pieces of eggshell when the egg is all peeled (my wife puts them in her compost pile).

This page revised 8/2/2008

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