Ring Around the Yolk

Recently, my friend’s 6-year old daughter was at my house. She was hungry so I served her an egg salad sandwich I’d made earlier that morning. As she’s scarfing it down she declares, “I like hard-boiled eggs but I don’t like the gray part.”

“Gray part?” I ask, puzzled and a little bit horrified.

“Yeah,” she said, “there’s the yellow part, the gray part* and the white part.”

“Honey, hard-boiled eggs should not have a gray part. Who is making these for you?”

Of course she refused to answer that question. While her mom, a dear friend of mine, is a great cook (I’m still hoping she was not the one making the eggs although I don’t think I ever flat out asked her) I thought it would be helpful to give a little tutorial on a fool-proof way to make hard-boiled eggs.

*Note: A gray or sometimes greenish-brown ring around the yolk is a sure fire indication that your eggs have been overcooked.

It used to be that eggs were eggs were eggs. But now there are so many different kinds! Brown, white, organic, free-range, cage-free… each yolk will have a slightly different color and flavor.  Which you choose is completely a subjective thing – my only tip here is that when cooking a recipe that calls for eggs, unless it says otherwise, when it calls for “2 eggs” they’re talking about Large eggs. Not X-Large or Jumbo. 

Now, onto the hard-boiling… This technique works for anywhere from 1-12 eggs.

- Gently place eggs at the bottom of a medium saucepan

- Fill with cool water until eggs are just covered

- Bring to a boil over medium-high heat (this could take 10-12 minutes, depending on your stove output). You may cover the pot while waiting for the water to come to a boil as it can speed up the process but note that it makes it a bit more challenging to notice when the water begins to boil

- Once you see the water just come to a boil, remove the pot from the heat, cover the pot and let sit for exactly 14 minutes

- Carefully transfer eggs from the pot to a colander and discard the water from the pot

- Run eggs (in colander) under cold water until the egg feels cool when you wrap your hand around it (2-4 minutes)

- Whether you’re going to eat the eggs immediately or store them, a tip is to peel them as soon as they’re cool. It’s MUCH easier to get the shell off

- Remember to rinse the peeled eggs to ensure there’s no rogue shell clinging

- Store what you’re not using right away in a lidded container in the fridge for up to 3 days.

This will give you a perfectly hard-boiled egg with only yellow and white. No gray ring!

Some ideas for hard-boiled eggs:

* Egg salad: the possibilities here are numerous from simple mayo, salt and pepper to smoked tea soaked egg salad to dill, capers and mustard

* Deviled eggs: basically taking the yolks, making any of the egg salads above and spooning the mashed yolks back into the halved whites

* Cut them up and include them in green salads for added protein

* Eat them plain with a sprinkling of any kind of salt – eggs are a great canvas for playing here. I often use smoked salt or lavender salt (see photo above)

Enjoy!