Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs

I realize this is my second post this week on eggs, so I beg your indulgence, but for all of the cooking I do, making a consistently perfect hard-boiled egg WHICH IS EASY TO PEEL has been beyond my abilities. Don't get me wrong, I know how to cook eggs so the yolk is solid and doesn't have a black ring around the center, but it's the blasted peeling process that befuddles me. I've experimented with using older eggs, salted water, vinegar water, blah, blah, blah. No theory has been consistent.

I can go multiple batches with great peeling, but then something unknown goes awry and half of the yolk comes off with the peel.

Dagnabit!

Enter Cooks Illustrated to the rescue.  I've bragged about this scientific cooking magazine before, but truly it's remarkable how well they research and test EVERY SINGLE thing!!

Hard-boiled eggs are no different. Actually they call them "hard-cooked" eggs because the eggs aren't really boiled so much as they are steamed.

Besides eggs, all you need is a steam basket and a timer. Be ready to have your mind blown!!Put an inch or so of water into a pan and bring to boil. This doesn't take nearly as much time as bringing the water to a boil when it's filled with eggs.Put COLD eggs in a single layer in the steam basket, cover and steam for 14 minutes(the magazine said 13 minutes, but this wasn't long enough to get a solid yolk). Keep the heat on the pan during the 14 minutes.Remove from the stove and rinse in cold water.Whether you peel immediately or chill then peel, this is what happens...PERFECTION!

Call me a geek, but this new techniques makes me all kinds of happy.

What can I say, it's all about the little things my friends!  Enjoy... and get yourself a Cook's Illustrated subscription.