As I said in my introduction, my goal with this blog is to provide tips and tricks to enhance your market experience and this week is about how to get that perfect hard boiled, farm fresh egg. We’ll cover soft boiled another day as I am still trying to understand that technique. This may seem quite simple but I joke with all seriousness that I have burned hard boiled eggs three times in my younger years. I even thought about writing a cookbook just on boiling eggs that would come complete with a preset timer and egg slicer. So I did some research and asked around. Salt? No Salt? Lid? No lid? Three minutes? Ten minutes? And all this before I became the Egg Lady. So nowadays, I am trying to boil farm fresh, unwashed, unrefrigerated eggs and I am struggling even more to get a smoothly peeled finished product.

Many have suggested the InstaPot or other handy kitchen gadgets but I want to keep it simple. According to fellow farmers, as well as my trusty Cooks Illustrated recipe book that my mom sent me (thanks mom), here is what I discovered. No matter the method (steamer, boil, etc), month old farm fresh eggs are best for hard boiling so feel comfortable in leaving a beautiful unwashed, unrefrigerated, dated dozen on the counter and ready to bathe in four weeks. Also, having the water boiling beforehand and immediately shocking them in an ice cold bath are both key to helping the membrane separate from the shell as well as not having the yolks overcook where they get that green ring.

Here is the link to the article I reference, https://www.cooksillustrated.com/articles/168-easy-peel-hard-cooked-eggs, and the steps:

1. Get your water boiling before adding the month old eggs.
2. Add your eggs, to preferably a steam but a straight boil is fine too.
3. No salt needed but definitely use a lid.
4. Steam or boil for 13 minutes.
5. Remove and immediately place in an ice bath for 15 minutes
6. Drain and peel, hopefully with ease.