Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Learn To Boil Eggs The many ways to Boil Eggs

By Bengare Kasba

Before boiling an egg, there are a few rules that should be kept in mind. They include never boiling eggs under a very low temperature if they were under refrigeration because they will crack after contact with hot water. The use of a kitchen timer is imperative and one should not depend on guess work or memory. Eggs should never be over-boiled because this leads to the yolk turning blackish while the texture becomes rubbery. For very fresh eggs, an additional 30 seconds should be allowed per timing.

The use of a saucepan for boiling eggs is recommendable to ensure that eggs do not career around to avoid cracking. Eggs do not require water that is boiling fast, but rather softly simmering water. This is basically because air collects on a pocket located at the eggs wide end while boiling and may lead to cracking due to pressure buildup. This can be dealt with rather easily through the use of a pin prick at the shells rounded exterior to free the steam. Soft-boiling or hard-boiling eggs generally depend on the preference of the user.

For soft-boiled eggs, a saucepan should have simmering water just adequate enough to ensure the eggs are covered by water by half an inch. A tablespoon should be used to lower the eggs gently into the simmering water. The timer should then be set and the eggs given a period of one minute to simmer. The pan should then be removed from the heat source and the timer reset. A setting of six minutes is bound to produce a fairly liquid and soft yolk as well a wobbly white. A setting of seven minutes produces creamier and firmer yolk with a completely set white.

Peeling eggs that are hard-boiled is a sensitive and tricky process and this is more so when they are boiled while very fresh. The eggs to be used require to have lasted at least five days old before they were last packed. The saucepan where the eggs require to be placed should contain sufficient cold water which should cover the eggs by at least " inch.

After the water is brought to a point of simmering, the timer should be set to either six or seven minutes depending on whether they are required completely cooked. Running cold water should be used to rapidly cool the eggs and this process should take relatively one minute. They should be left in cold water for around two minutes.

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