Why turn off the heat on hard boiled eggs once water boils?

March 29, 2018 4:37 PM

Why do hard boiled egg recipes call for turning off the heat once the water reaches a boil?
posted by Triumphant Muzak to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

I always thought it was because boiling knocks the eggs around and they're not cooked enough under the shell to prevent some of the egg escaping when it gets cracked from being knocked around.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 4:42 PM on March 29, 2018

Some do, some don’t; it’s just one of many methods of timing them.
The amount of water, the amount of eggs, when you add the eggs and the desired texture will all affect the cooking times.

My preferred recipe does not call for turning the water off when it boils. Rather, I bring at least a quart of water to hard boil, gently add 4-6 eggs, leave on medium heat and wait for 7 minutes then immediately quench in cold water and refrigerate. This yields eggs that are easy to peel, have well-cooked whites, solid outer yolk, with a bit of softer yolk gel at the center. That’s how I like them, and a method that works well for me.

But other methods call for heating eggs and water together to boil, you can cook eggs in water without ever boiling, etc., etc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:46 PM on March 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Best answer: The main reason to reduce/remove from heat while boiling eggs hard is to minimize the time the water is above 170F/77C, which can cause the green line/yolks.

Serious eats, of course, did a full article on The Food Lab: How to Make Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs for your options.
posted by skynxnex at 4:52 PM on March 29, 2018 [28 favorites]

It's an attempt to help you avoid green yolks, which are caused by overcooking.
posted by wierdo at 4:53 PM on March 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

The Serious Eats article is great! i always added the eggs first, brought the water to a boil and turned it off. It makes it much easier to avoid overcooking the whites but I never realized before there was a trade-off in terms of ease of peeling. Made hard boiled eggs tonight by adding them to already boiling water for exactly 11 minutes and they were SO easy to peel.
posted by metahawk at 9:45 PM on March 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Ah, memories. Mother's Easter eggs always had green-ringed yolks. Guess she wanted to prevent any egg slop on the rugs from half cooked yolks.
posted by Cranberry at 12:18 AM on March 30, 2018

The Serious Eats article is good, especially the part about steaming the eggs. That was completely new to me. (Content note: There's a jarringly gratuitous side-comment about the "wrong people" having babies. Whatever brought that on, Kenji?)
posted by Weftage at 7:23 AM on March 30, 2018

Yeah, it's a control thing - people tend to overcook hardboiled eggs and this helps prevent it.

I get best results by boiling the water, backing the heat off a bit, gently adding the eggs with a spoon, and taking them immediately out of the hot water and into cold when the timer goes off.

Timing depends a bit on how you store your eggs - the nice farmer's market eggs that aren't buffed sit right on my counter, and cook faster because they aren't refrigerated. Straight from fridge to pan adds a minute or so to the cooking time.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:44 PM on April 1, 2018