Eggs have long become an everyday product of our diet, and it’s not for nothing that every refrigerator has a special place for storing them. They are fried and boiled, added to baked goods, salads, casseroles, sauces, soups and other dishes. There are a great many recipes containing this product. But it is not always possible to cook eggs in such a way that the desired result is obtained. Especially when it comes to varying degrees of readiness.

About the benefits of eggs

The benefits of eggs for our body can hardly be overestimated, and the common opinion about the harm to the liver is greatly exaggerated. The yolk contains a large amount of cholesterol, which led to the assumption that its level in the blood increases when eating eggs. Based on recent research, it has become clear that the “good” cholesterol in eggs displaces the “bad” cholesterol from the body.

In addition, the product contains:

1. Vitamins A, D, E, group B (B 3, B 6, B 12), K are necessary to maintain immunity and normal metabolism.
2. Microelements: iodine, zinc, calcium, magnesium, iron phosphorus are involved in the processes of hematopoiesis, cell nutrition and respiration, and hormone synthesis. Sulfur helps maintain healthy skin, hair and nails.
3. Choline and lecithin are beneficial for the nervous system and brain cells.
4. Cholesterol prevents damage to blood vessels and the formation of sclerotic plaques, is a building material for brain and liver cells, and is necessary for the synthesis of testosterone.
5. Essential amino acids necessary for cell construction.

Average consumption of eggs per day depending on age and physical activity

Consumption per day depends on health status, physical activity and age; a nutritionist will help determine the exact amount. Here are the average standards for different age groups.

• adults - 1-3 pcs. in a day;
• children under 2 years old - 2-3 yolks per week;
• children 4-6 years old - 3-5 eggs per week;
• athletes - 10 pcs. and more.

For athletes, easily digestible protein helps quickly build muscle mass.

Chicken eggs are a common product on our table.

Quail:

• up to 3 years - up to 3 pcs. in a day;
• up to 10 years - 3 pcs.;
• over 10 years old - 4 pcs.;
• athletes - athletes - 14-20 pcs.

In terms of nutritional value and content of nutrients, quail eggs are 2-5 times superior to chicken eggs. They have almost no salmonellosis, which is especially important for children.

The nutritional value of quail eggs is 2-5 times higher than chicken eggs.

Ducks are twice as large as chickens and much fattier. Overweight people are not recommended to eat them more than once every 2 days.

Duck eggs are larger than chicken eggs and their yolk contains more fat.

Turkey ranks second in terms of usefulness after quail. One egg weighs on average 75 g, replacing two chicken eggs.

Turkey eggs are second only to quail eggs in terms of nutritional value.

Ostrich eggs hold 25-38 eggs, equivalent to chicken eggs. Before preparing such exotic food, calculate the number of eaters.

One ostrich egg can feed 10 people

How to cook eggs

Boiling eggs is a simple process and does not require complex equipment. All you need is dishes, water and a heating source. The heater used is:

• gas stove;
• electric stove;
• oven;
• microwave;
• multicooker;
• double boiler;
• egg boiler;
• bake;
• bonfire.

In a desperate situation, you can even use an electric kettle; it combines a water container and a heating element. Although the device is not intended for this and does not have a temperature regulator.

Despite the simplicity of the process, there is always a desire to simplify it. The egg boiler is evidence of this. The device consists of a water container with a heating element and a grill. Unlike the usual method for us, cooking occurs by steaming.

Cooking in egg cookers takes place by steaming

How and for how long to boil eggs

Depending on the cooking time, the eggs are soft-boiled (with liquid white and yolk), in a bag (soft white and liquid yolk) or hard-boiled (hard white and yolk).

The degree of readiness of eggs depends on their freshness, cooking time and stove power.

Advice! Add salt or vinegar to the cooking water - the protein will quickly coagulate and will not leak out if the shell bursts.

Soft-boiled

Cooked eggs are not peeled, but the “lid” is cut off from the sharp edge with a sharp knife and eaten with a spoon.

A soft-boiled egg is not peeled, but eaten with a teaspoon from the shell.

1. Fill the eggs with cold water so that there is a layer of at least 1 cm above them.

   Pour cold water over the eggs and bring to a boil

2. Add 1 tbsp. l. salt or pour in the same amount of vinegar.

   Add salt or vinegar to the water to prevent the whites from leaking out.

3. Wait until it boils, reduce heat to minimum.
4. Cook for 2 minutes until the white and yolk are runny.
5. It will take 3 minutes for the white to “set” and the yolk to remain runny.
6. Remove from heat and immediately cool under running water.

   Refrigerate eggs immediately after boiling.

Advice! Remove the eggs from the refrigerator 3 hours before cooking or keep them in warm water for 15 minutes so that they warm up a little and the shells do not burst when immersed in boiling water.

1. Boil water in a saucepan, add salt or vinegar.

   Bring water to a boil

2. Using a spoon or slotted spoon, drop the eggs into the water one at a time.

   Drop eggs into boiling water using a spoon or slotted spoon.

3. Once boiling, cook for 1 minute.

   After the water boils, wait 1 minute

4. Remove the pan from the heat, cover with a lid and wait 5 minutes.
5. Place in cold water. The white will be soft and the yolk will be runny.

Many useful kitchen appliances have appeared in our everyday life that make cooking easier. One of them is a slow cooker. Cook in it the same way as in a regular pan, or steam it.

Use a double boiler or an egg boiler; the cooking principle in these devices is the same. Cooking in an egg cooker is described in detail in the instructions for the device.

This is interesting! When steamed, the yolk does not move, but remains in the center of the egg.

In a bag

This is an intermediate option between “soft-boiled” and “hard-boiled”, so it is not always possible to achieve the desired result. Cook using the same methods as soft-boiled eggs, changing the boiling time:

• When cooking according to the first method, keep it on the fire for 4-5 minutes after boiling to get a liquid or viscous yolk.
• With the second method, keep it covered for 6-7 minutes after turning off the heat.
• Steam for 5-6 minutes. For multicookers and steamers of different power, the time may vary.

The egg has a soft white and a runny or viscous yolk.

Important! The cooking process continues inside the egg even after it is removed from the boiling water. Therefore, it is important to cool it immediately.

Hard-boiled

It would seem that such eggs are the easiest to prepare. But here, too, cooking time plays an important role. The overcooked protein becomes rubbery, and a grayish coating appears on the yolk.

Hard-boiled eggs have hard whites and yolks.

The white will be completely cooked, and the yolk will be firm but crumbly if you boil the eggs for 7-8 minutes after boiling. This rule applies if you cook in cold or hot water. When steaming, the time can be increased to 10 minutes.

Advice! The egg has an air chamber at the blunt end between the shell and the white. Pierce the shell with a thin needle in this place and the finished egg will be of the correct shape, without a recess.

For children

Eggs should be washed with soap and water before boiling to reduce the risk of salmonellosis. For the same purpose, children should cook only hard-boiled eggs that are completely boiled.

Start complementary feeding with the yolk, as the white can provoke an allergic reaction. The cooking technology does not differ from those described above.

For salads

For salads, hard-boiled eggs are used. The yolk should be well cooked, without a viscous center.

Advice! For fresh eggs (up to 4 days), cook for 30-60 seconds longer.

It happens that when cleaning eggs, the shell does not separate well from the white. A few tips will help you avoid this:

1. Do not hard-boil eggs that are too fresh (up to 4 days), they are harder to peel.
2. Immediately after cooking, cool them in cold water.
3. Before finishing cooking, lightly tap the shell with a knife so that it cracks and water gets inside.
4. Clean by holding under running cold water.

Table of cooking times for eggs from different layers after boiling water

The degree of readiness of an egg at the same boiling time depends on its size, freshness, and the power of the stove. The exact time can only be determined experimentally.

In addition to the usual method, eggs are also boiled without shells. They are called “poached” and added to various soups, salads, and sandwiches.

Boiling eggs without shell (poached)

Choose the degree of doneness that you like best. Experiment with cooking times and remember the best results. And then you will always have a tasty, healthy and nutritious breakfast.

Today we will boil eggs... Do you think there is nothing to be able to do here, and everything is elementary? Throw the eggs into boiling water, take them out after a certain number of minutes, and you’re done? It is not that simple! That's why I'm going to devote an entire post to boiled eggs.

To start, I turned to my beloved Harold McGee.

Let's talk about hard boiled eggs.

According to McGee, boiling is not the best way to cook eggs. Turbulent water causes the eggs to spin, causing the shell to crack and the whites to leak out.

When the temperature at which eggs are cooked is much higher than their coagulation temperature, the outer layers of the white become rubbery. Eggs should be boiled at a temperature of 80ºC -85ºC. McGee recommends steaming your eggs. If you boil them in water, it will take you 10-15 minutes (depending on the size of the egg and the cooking method) for hard boiled eggs. After 10 minutes, the white becomes white and elastic, and the yolk remains slightly moist and crumbly. After 15 minutes it becomes lighter, drier and granular.

Eggs are sometimes boiled for many hours to enhance the color and flavor. For example, Chinese tea eggs are boiled until tender, then the shell is slightly cracked and simmered in a mixture of tea, salt, sugar and spices to obtain a marbled and very aromatic elastic white.

What is a perfectly boiled egg?

A properly boiled egg has a firm but tender consistency. The shell remains intact and is easy to peel, the yolk is in the center, its taste is delicate and not sulfuric.

The key to getting good texture and flavor is to not overcook the egg. Any method that keeps the temperature well below boiling point will help avoid overcooking. After cooking, place the eggs in ice water.

How to fight against cracking shells and shells that are difficult to peel off?

First of all, cook the eggs at a low simmer. Paradoxically, to guarantee a beautifully peeled egg, you need to use an old egg! This is due to the low pH of the fresh egg white, which causes the white to attach more tightly to the shell. A few days after putting the eggs in the refrigerator, the pH rises and the shells peel off more easily. You can add a little baking soda to the cooking water to make it more alkaline. But it can enhance the sulfuric taste of the eggs.

If you want an "attractive" egg to slice, use good quality fresh eggs, and keep them in the refrigerator on their side. Although, the last rule has not been 100% proven and cannot be completely relied upon.

Green yolks

It happens that a gray-green spot appears on the surface of the yolk of a hard-boiled egg. This is a harmless formation of iron and sulfur (iron sulfide). It forms at the junction of the white and the yolk, because there the sulfur from the white comes into contact with the iron from the yolk. The alkaline environment of water and an increase in temperature encourage the “leakage” of sulfur atoms from the protein proteins, after which the sulfur reacts with iron on the surface layer of the yolk. The older the eggs, the faster this reaction occurs. High temperature and prolonged cooking also enhance this reaction.

You can minimize the “greening” of the yolk by using fresh eggs, boiling them as little as possible, and refrigerating them immediately after boiling.

Regarding soft-boiled eggs and in a bag

The same cooking rules apply to such eggs, only it is necessary to reduce the cooking time depending on the desired result.

Let's look at McGee's terminology:

French oeuf à la coque cook for only 2-3 minutes to obtain a warm but semi-liquid white and yolk. We call these eggs soft-boiled eggs.

Coddled or “soft-boiled” eggs, cook for 3-5 minutes to obtain a slightly hardened outer white, a semi-liquid inner and a runny warm white.

If we boil the eggs for 5-6 minutes (mollet eggs (from the French Molle,“soft”), then we get a semi-liquid yolk and enough elastic white to peel a whole egg from the shell.

It seems to me that both options can be classified as poached eggs. But everyone likes different degrees of cooking. I prefer the second option.

Maybe someone knows what these two cooking methods are called in Russian? What is the linguistic difference?

From theory to practice

After studying the theory, I decided to move on to practice. So, McGee advises boiling eggs at a temperature of 80ºC -85ºC. How to do this? I never guessed it. After all, even if you initially bring the water to this temperature, even with very light bubbling, it will still rise to 95ºC, or even 98ºC, in a couple of minutes!

I turned to the book Essentials of Professional Cooking. The book gives three options for boiling eggs in the shell.

Two general rules apply to all of them. Eggs need to be removed from the refrigerator an hour before cooking. You can warm them to room temperature by placing them in warm water for 5 minutes. Cold eggs can crack due to the temperature contrast. The exact cooking time depends on the size of the eggs and the temperature.

Option #1

1. Place the eggs in boiling water and immediately reduce the heat so that the eggs simmer slowly, but do not boil.
2. Cook for the required time:

- Soft cooked ( soft) 3 to 4 minutes

Medium cooked 5 to 7 minutes

Hard cooked 12 to 15 minutes

3. Cool immediately under running cold water. Refrigerate briefly if you want to serve the eggs warm. Leave longer if you are boiling the eggs for later.

4. Start cleaning with the blunt end. For easier cleaning, run the eggs under cold water.

Option No. 2

1. Place eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water.
2. Let the water boil
3. Reduce heat and cook for the required time:

Soft cooked 1 minute

Medium cooked 3 to 5 minutes

Option No. 3 (Only for hard boiled eggs)

Follow the same steps as in option No. 2, but after the water boils, remove the pan from the heat, cover with a lid and let the eggs sit for 20 minutes.

It didn't end there. I decided to conduct an experiment.

I took out 3 eggs from the refrigerator in advance, bought two days ago at the market. According to the seller, the eggs were three days old at the time of purchase. Weight - approximately 70 grams, that is, a selected egg. By American standards, this egg is large. I boiled all three eggs hard-boiled.

I’ll make a reservation right away. I can't give you exact times and temperatures for each egg size.

To do this, I would need to use hundreds of eggs, spend 2 weeks in the kitchen, and burn a ton of electricity. If there is a sponsor, then I’m almost ready.

But I think my conclusions will help you!

In the first two options, the minimum temperature that I managed to achieve was 92 degrees and with almost imperceptible bubbling. In the third option, the water temperature at the time of removal from the heat was 95 degrees, and dropped to 70 degrees after 20 minutes. I still haven’t figured out how to boil eggs at 80-85 degrees. Any ideas?

In the first version, I cooked for 12 minutes.

The second one is 10 minutes.

In the third, I kept the eggs in hot water for 20 minutes.

The result was the same for all three options. The protein is very tender, elastic, but not rubbery. The yolk is slightly moist in places and crumbly. That is, for a stiffer yolk, it was necessary to add a few minutes. The eggs actually peeled better when I kept them under cold running water longer.

Here's a cross-sectional photo of one of the eggs.
All three options turned out the same, so I’m giving one photo.

Conclusion: You will determine the exact cooking time for yourself by trial and error. This skill will come with time. It is important not to let the eggs boil wildly. Let the water bubble slightly, as in the photo.

Ppo salt

I always added salt to the water when boiling eggs. To prevent them from cracking. Sometimes the shell would burst anyway. Interestingly, neither McGee nor Glisslein recommend adding salt when cooking. They don't say a word about this at all. I turned to Uncle Google.

And I found the following information:

And as we remember, salt was put into the water from the very beginning. The question arises again: why is this necessary?

In its natural form, egg white is a viscous liquid consisting mainly of water (88%) and protein, protein itself (11%). Under normal conditions, a long protein molecule is folded into a ball under the influence of internal chemical bonds. Such balls float in water without reacting with each other. This picture changes dramatically with increasing temperature. The higher the temperature, the faster the water molecules move, the more energetically they collide with the balls. Eventually the weak internal bonds of the protein tangles break, and they turn into ribbons. These ribbons chemically bond with each other to form a strong and resilient three-dimensional network. We say: the protein has folded (although, paradoxically, its molecules had to unfold to do this).

It’s not just high temperature that can open up protein molecules. Chemical bonds are electrical in nature, and changing the number of charged particles around a molecule can cause the molecular bonds to break apart spontaneously. This is what happens when salts and other compounds that produce ions are dissolved in water. These charged ions promote the rapid formation of a protein network. In other words, protein coagulates faster in salt water. This is the point of adding salt to the water when boiling eggs: if the shell breaks, the white will instantly curl up in the crack, sealing it tightly.

It seems that I was mistaken.

I didn't add salt when cooking. On McGee's advice, I didn't add soda either. When boiling eggs in three versions, the egg that was immersed in boiling water cracked the most. The shell of the egg, left to sit for 20 minutes, did not burst. And the egg burst a little when it was dipped in cold water. I think this is explained by the fact that with gradual heating, there is no sharp temperature change. Overall, I really liked the 3rd option for hard-boiled eggs, and I prefer the 2nd option for soft-boiled or poached eggs.

All! Next time we will cook poached eggs and make omelettes. By the way, not without the help of Julia Child!

Photo from the book Food Preparation

How to boil eggs and how long does it take to boil a soft-boiled egg, in a bag, or hard-boiled, so that the yolk of the boiled egg is soft and tasty? How to properly boil a chicken egg in water so that it does not crack and is easy to clean? How to cook a poached egg at home? We suggest you find out the optimal cooking time for chicken and quail eggs and how to cook eggs.

Conventional boiling of eggs at home often creates certain inconveniences during cooking. When buying eggs, as a rule, you choose whole ones, without cracks, you inspect them from all sides, but as soon as you put the egg in cold water, doubts begin about what heat to cook quail and regular eggs.

How to boil regular eggs

Usually, when you want to boil a delicious egg with a soft yolk, problems begin with the consistency of the egg yolk. As a result, in addition to the hard yolk, the eggshell on the egg burst, almost all the white leaked out, or the eggs turned out tasteless and overcooked. To top it all off, a boiled egg is very difficult to peel. Each of us longs to enjoy a perfectly cooked hard-boiled, soft-boiled, or pouched egg.

To achieve an excellent result, you need, firstly, to look at the packaging - it indicates the batch number, date and shelf life of the eggs. This is a kind of hint for the buyer, which not everyone pays attention to. But practice shows that it is completely in vain. After all, knowing the packing date, we can clearly determine what can be prepared from fresh eggs and what needs to wait.

Advice from the Wonder Chef. Fresh village or store-bought chicken eggs, which are 4-6 days old, are cooked longer than usual by 1-2 minutes, depending on the size. In addition, a fresh boiled egg is quite difficult to peel, since the shell does not break off in large pieces, but only in small pieces. As a result, the protein turns out uneven and unappetizing.

An ugly protein won't look good on a plate.

How to properly boil eggs

1. The size of the pan for boiling eggs is very important!
2. To prevent the eggs from knocking on each other and bursting while boiling, you need to select a small saucepan.
3. The amount of water in the pan should be such that each egg is completely hidden under water.
4. To avoid cracked shells and leaked whites, cold eggs should not be immersed in hot water before cooking.
5. Eggs should be placed in cold water. The temperature difference negatively affects the eggshell, and it cracks during cooking.
6. When cooking several eggs at once, for example, place them in the pan carefully and separately.

What heat should you use to cook eggs?

How and how long should you boil eggs so that both the yolk and white are tasty and soft? After the eggs boil, the heat must be reduced and the further cooking process continued over low heat. Strong boiling will make the egg rubbery and the boiled egg will turn grey. Such an egg can hardly be used for

To increase the boiling point and to avoid cracks, add a pinch of table salt to the water. In order to better peel the shells from boiled eggs, after the allotted time in the instructions, the finished eggs are immediately dipped in cold water for 1-2 minutes.

How to properly boil hard-boiled eggs

How to boil eggs and how many minutes of time should be measured after the water boils if the eggs need to be hard-boiled? The answer seems simple - put the eggs in cold water and let them cook like... But in order to properly boil an egg for, it is important to know how to hard-boil eggs so that they peel well and are soft.

Cooking time depends not only on the size of the eggs, but also on the color of the shell. It has been empirically proven many times: hard-boiled eggs cook faster with white shells. With brown shells, it takes longer for the hard-boiled eggs to cook until done.

The fact is that dark eggshells are stronger, perhaps even thicker, than light eggshells. Surely you have more than once encountered the fact that white eggs burst during boiling much more often than brown eggs with a brown shell.

Boiling hard-boiled eggs, at first glance, seems to be the easiest way. But if you keep eggs in boiling water longer than necessary, they become hard, tasteless and are not even suitable for cooking your favorite

What you need to add to the pan to prevent eggs from cracking during cooking:

• water;
• eggs;
• salt, vinegar or citric acid.

We suggest you learn a few secrets so that a chicken egg does not burst and the shell remains intact during cooking.

What to do to prevent eggs from bursting during cooking

We select strong eggs without cracks in the shell and inspect each egg. If you did not have time to remove the eggs from the refrigerator in advance, you can warm them up by holding them in warm water.

1. First, rinse the eggs under running water.
2. Using carefully, place one egg at a time into a small saucepan or ladle, this is necessary so that the eggs do not “jump” when boiling and do not hit each other.
3. Pour cold tap water over the eggs until they are completely covered.
4. Bring the eggs to a boil.

How long to boil hard-boiled eggs to avoid cracking?

Once the water boils well, reduce the heat. Boil hard-boiled eggs for 7-8 minutes over medium heat so that the yolk is soft but not runny.

Remove the hard-boiled eggs from the boiling water and cover with running cold water. Leave the hard-boiled eggs in cold water for 1-2 minutes.

How to properly boil soft-boiled eggs

Eggs for boiling should always be at room temperature, no matter what kind of water they are dipped into - cold or hot.

A soft-boiled egg is ideal for breakfast not only for children, but also for adults. We have the right to eat 1-2 warm, tasty soft-boiled eggs in the morning in combination with toast or butter, saturating ourselves with a full breakfast.

To properly boil soft-boiled eggs, you need to follow the general rules, do the same as in the previous recipe: put them in cold water, bring them to a boil and measure the cooking time.

How long to boil a soft-boiled egg in boiling water

In boiling water (meaning after boiling the eggs in cold water), how long to boil a soft-boiled egg is easy to determine, based on the size of the egg and how it needs to be boiled, what type of soft-boiled egg. There are different types of “soft-boiled” eggs, and it is more correct to divide the soft-boiled egg into two types.

• You need to cook a soft-boiled egg for 3 minutes in boiling water - from the moment the water boils.

For the second option, in which the white is more solid, but the yolk is still liquid:

• The boiling time for soft-boiled eggs will be exactly 4 minutes in boiling water.

Not everyone likes soft-boiled eggs. But the method of boiling soft-boiled eggs is considered more beneficial for health and normal digestion than hard-boiled eggs.

Note!

How to boil an egg so that the yolk is soft

To keep the yolk soft, it is better to boil the egg in a bag. Poaching an egg is one of the popular ways to cook chicken eggs. Boiled eggs with a soft yolk are considered a type of soft-boiled egg.

Eggs in a bag are loved by those who do not like soft-boiled eggs with a runny yolk or hard-boiled eggs with a hard yolk. The pouch represents the middle state of a cooked soft egg between a hard-boiled and a soft-boiled egg.

Preliminary preparation and cooking itself are done similarly to the methods mentioned above. The only difference between poached eggs is the cooking time. How long you need to boil eggs in a bag is calculated in minutes.

How long to boil an egg in a bag after boiling

Many children only eat eggs boiled in a “bag”. Not kids, of course, but older children, schoolchildren, for example, who can cope with this task themselves simply and without much effort.

For a tasty and proper “pouch”, the egg can be boiled exactly 5 minutes after the water boils.

Poached eggs: what they are and how to cook them

To prepare a poached egg at home, the main condition is strictly fresh chicken eggs, otherwise a real egg bag - a classic poached egg - will not work.

Poached eggs are eggs boiled in a pouch, but without the shell. In this unusual method of boiling eggs, water can be replaced with milk or broth: vegetable or.

How to properly cook poached eggs: recipe

1. Boil water or other selected liquid in a wide saucepan (about 1.5 liters), add a little salt for taste.
2. Then carefully break a clean egg and release its contents into a cup or bowl.
3. Next, transfer (release) the egg into a slightly boiling liquid so that it does not sink to the bottom of the pan, but floats on the surface. If it does settle, carefully remove it with a spatula and continue cooking at a gentle simmer for about 3-4 minutes, until the protein hardens.
4. Then, with a large spoon or ladle, take out the finished whole poached egg and serve it on the table, in fish, meat, hot and cold, under and with others, sprinkle with herbs.

Poached eggs are very tasty boiled eggs. For anyone who has never boiled a chicken egg this way, we definitely recommend doing it.

How to boil quail eggs so they are easy to peel

Quails are not susceptible to salmonellosis and quail eggs do not cause allergic reactions in children. Quail eggs are considered cleaner than chicken eggs and are ideal for healthy baby food.

Quail eggs are several times superior in vitamins and nutrients to chicken eggs.

The size of quail eggs is very tiny, therefore, the cooking time for quail eggs differs from chicken eggs.

How long to cook quail eggs

Boil a soft-boiled quail egg for 2 minutes.

Boil a hard-boiled quail egg for 5 minutes.

Quail eggs, in addition to classical cooking, are widely used in cooking and...

How long to boil eggs

Summarize. You already know what needs to be done so that the egg does not burst while boiling and the shell is cleaned well. We remind you how many minutes to cook eggs.

How long to boil chicken eggs:

• soft-boiled – 3-4 minutes;
• hard-boiled in a saucepan – 7-8 minutes;
• hard-boiled in the microwave – 1 minute;
• in a bag – 5 minutes;
• The poached egg is cooked for 3-4 minutes.

How long to cook quail eggs:

• soft-boiled quail eggs need to be boiled – 2 minutes;
• Hard-boil quail eggs - 5 minutes in boiling water.

If you liked and found this article useful, we will be very glad. We ask you to share your recipes with us in the comments. It is very important to be able to boil eggs and know how to boil an egg so that the yolk is soft, tasty and the shell is easy to peel.

Friends! Perhaps you know or have heard about new methods - how to boil eggs in special forms, egg boilers and other devices. Write to us!

Each of you knows perfectly well how to boil eggs, but everyone does it differently. At the same time, there are certain culinary tricks, following which you can learn how to do everything correctly and give the eggs the best taste!

Useful tips for boiling eggs

All the secrets of boiling an egg are quite elementary, so you can know some of them and use them regularly in everyday life:

• Many of you probably put eggs in the pan immediately after refrigeration - this is the main and most common mistake, especially when immersing eggs in hot water. Their shells will simply burst during cooking. To avoid this, let the eggs come to room temperature.
• Use a timer to boil the egg. This way you can clearly control your time, and this is important.
• It is better to use a small saucepan or saucepan so that the eggs dangling in boiling water do not break against each other.
• If you pour cold water into the eggs, boil it over medium heat, otherwise the whites will be tough.
• It is recommended to cook fresh eggs that are less than 4-5 days old 30-40 seconds longer.

How to cook to make it easier to clean?

To make eggshells easy to peel, you need to cool them with cold water immediately after boiling, but that’s not all. It is recommended to immerse them in hot, not cold water, and there is one secret to prevent them from cracking. On the blunt side of each egg there is an air gap in which pressure increases during cooking, and this can lead to cracking of the shell.

To avoid damage to the shell, the egg is pierced with a needle or pushpin - a small, neat hole is obtained. This way you will be able to boil the egg so that it is easy to peel and the shell does not crack. In addition, you need to add a spoonful of salt to the water for boiling eggs - it softens the shell and makes it easier to peel.

How to boil eggs

Hard boiling

All people, without exception, periodically boil hard-boiled eggs, and do it without thinking. This can be done in a saucepan, saucepan, or even in a kettle - it’s not a complicated matter. In fact, the process has some nuances that allow you to get a truly tasty finished product.

You can boil the eggs in cold water, but it is better to immerse them in water that is already hot, but not yet boiling. You can salt it to make it easier to clean, and you need to cook it for exactly 7 minutes if the eggs are stale or 8 minutes if they are fresh (they are less than four days old). If you overcook, the yolk will dry out and turn grey. After boiling, place the boiled egg in cold water for ten minutes or you can immediately peel it under running water.

Boil soft-boiled

To get a soft-boiled egg, you need to choose it correctly - this is important. It should be fresh, and this is not difficult to check - just put the egg in cold water: if it sinks to the bottom, it is more than six days old, that is, it is suitable for soft-boiling. An egg that has sunk under the water, but not to the very bottom, is also suitable, and if it remains on the surface, such an egg cannot be cooked soft-boiled.

Boiling a soft-boiled egg is not difficult. Place it in cold water and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 2-3 minutes after boiling. As a result, you will get a soft-boiled egg, the white and yolk of which will be runny. If you put the eggs in hot water, hold them for no more than one and a half minutes, and then remove the dishes from the heat, but do not remove the eggs, but leave them for five minutes.

Cook in a bag

To cook eggs in a bag, make sure they are fresh using the method described above. The process of preparing eggs in this case is also not fundamentally different. Ideally, the yolk should be completely liquid and tender, and the white should be compacted - this is a real egg in a bag.

To obtain this result, it is better to immerse the eggs in cold water, slowly bring it to a boil and cook for 4-5 minutes. After this, place the pan under running cold water for 20-30 seconds so that they are easier to clean, but do not have time to cool down.

Poached eggs

While everything is clear with hard-boiled or soft-boiled eggs, not everyone knows how to cook poached chicken eggs. The technology involves cooking an egg without a shell, so that the final result is the most delicate consistency of white and yolk. This method involves using the freshest possible product - no more than three days. If an egg sits for a week and you try to poach it, the whites and yolks will inevitably spread and nothing will work.

You can cook liquid poached eggs as follows: you need to boil one and a half liters of water, add salt (15-20 g) and 100 ml of 6 percent vinegar. After breaking the shell, pour the egg into a plate, and then pour into boiling, but not bubbling, water. Using a spoon, shape the mixture into an egg and cook for 2-4 minutes, then carefully remove. They are used in gourmet dishes or spread on toasted bread.

How to cook quail eggs?

Quail eggs are cooked very simply - just like chicken eggs, but about twice as fast. It is necessary to bring the water to a boil (even a Turk is suitable for this), and slowly lower the quail eggs into it. Again, wait for the water to boil and note the time: two minutes for the eggs to be soft-boiled, or five minutes for them to be hard-boiled.

We use kitchen appliances

Many housewives wonder how to cook soft-boiled or hard-boiled eggs on an electric stove? This cooking option is no different from cooking on a gas stove, but with a microwave or other kitchen appliances everything is somewhat different.

In general, you cannot cook eggs in their shells in the microwave, as they will burst or even explode. If you have no options, heat the water in the microwave, take it out and plunge the eggs into it. Cover with a lid and leave for 20-25 minutes until the whites and yolks harden. The method is not the fastest and most convenient, so it is rarely used. The second option is quick, but risky: the egg is immersed in a glass of water (it should sink) and placed in the microwave for three minutes at a power of 400-500 W, no more.

Cooking eggs in a double boiler is much easier, and some models even have special recesses for this. The eggs are simply placed in the steamer and the timer is turned on. They will cook hard-boiled for about 20 minutes, in a bag for 15-17, and soft-boiled for 10-12 minutes.

You can also boil eggs in a slow cooker - this method is almost no different from the traditional one. Place eggs in a bowl, add water, close the lid and select steaming mode. Boil eggs hard-boiled for 10-12 minutes, in a bag for up to 9 minutes and soft-boiled for 4-5 minutes.

The famous American chef, culinary blogger and writer Kenji Lopez-Alt, being a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, often conducts scientific and gastronomic experiments. One of them concerned boiling eggs.

I've boiled thousands and thousands of eggs over the past few years. And believe me, there is no one hundred percent reliable method. However, old lady science increases the chances of success. If you listen to its laws, you can get an easy-to-clean hard-boiled egg with a well-cooked yolk and tasty white.

Kenji Lopez-Alt, chef, food blogger, writer

Freshness level

You've probably heard from mothers and grandmothers that eggs that have been sitting for a while are easier to clean.

Peeling a fresh hard-boiled egg requires a lot of patience.

The “age” of eggs really matters, but only if they are very, very fresh, literally from a chicken. If you buy eggs from farmers or keep chickens yourself and don’t want to go through the hassle of peeling the eggs, then let them sit in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.

If you buy eggs at the supermarket, then there is little point in waiting. By the time they are packaged at the poultry farm and distributed to retail outlets, enough time will pass for the eggs to “grow old.” In addition, for the final result, it is not the expiration date that is much more important, but.

What kind of water should I put it in?

Most residents of megacities put their eggs in the refrigerator and cook them immediately, as soon as they take them out, since there is no time to wait for them to warm up at room temperature. Usually we just put them in a pan, fill them with cold water and put them on the stove. And that is why part of the protein then remains on the shell.

To peel eggs quickly and easily, place them in already boiling water.

Even if you take two or three week old eggs and boil them in cold water, half of them will not peel well. The following picture clearly demonstrates the advantages of a “hot start” over a cold one.

According to Kenji, it’s like with steaks: if you put a piece of meat in a cold frying pan and heat it slowly, the process of blood clotting will begin and the juice that should be released, soaking the meat, will remain inside. Heated together with water, the egg white cooks slowly and adheres firmly to the shell shell.

So, “hot start” ensures easy peeling of eggs. But, alas, there is a flip side to the coin. When you boil eggs in cold water and over low heat, the yolk remains properly in the center; When you throw eggs into boiling boiling water, they spin and flop around. As a result, when you cut into a boiled egg, you may find that the yolk is uneven and, to put it mildly, is located asymmetrically.

The way out is steaming - in an electric egg cooker or in a saucepan on a special grill. This makes it easier to control the thermal processes inside the egg.

Take a look at this photo. There are eight eggs on it: the first was boiled for one minute, the second for three, the third for five, and so on.

Let's see what happens to the egg when it ends up in the pan and starts to cook. First, let's look at how proteins react to rising temperatures.

• 0–60 °C. Liquid protein heats up slowly.
• 60 °C. Some of the proteins, called glycoproteins, begin to bind together to form a matrix. The protein acquires a milky white color and a jelly-like consistency (in the picture above - an egg after three minutes of boiling).
• 68 °C. The glycoproteins of the egg white are formed: it is no longer transparent, quite dense, but still a bit like jelly (see egg after five minutes of boiling).
• 82 °C. Ovalbumin is released - this is the main protein of egg white, thanks to which it becomes snow-white and elastic (see eggs after seven and nine minutes of boiling).
• 82 °C or more. The higher the temperature, the stronger the protein bonds. And the longer the cooking time, the drier and harder, like rubber, the protein becomes.

Yolks have a slightly different set of temperatures.

• 63 °C. The yolks thicken and begin to cook.
• 70 °C. The yolks have set, but they are still tender and bright yellow.
• 77 °C. The yolks turn pale and become crumbly.
• 77 °C or more. The yolks begin to dry out, their texture resembles chalk. The sulfur contained in the protein reacts with the iron in the yolk - iron sulfide is released, which slightly colors the yolk. Look at the eggs that were boiled for 11 and 15 minutes: a characteristic gray-green rim has formed between the yolk and the white.

Thus, in order to get a hard-boiled egg with an elastic white and a delicate yolk, which will be perfectly peelable, you need to put it in boiling water, and after 30 seconds, when the subsided boiling is reactivated, reduce the heat and cook for another 10 minutes. In the first half a minute, the whites will harden and turn white, and in the remaining time the yolks will cook at the right temperature.

We’ve sorted out the temperature and time, but what about the fact that eggs sometimes crack and leak when boiled?

Steamed and oven

When cooking the old fashioned way, in cold or hot water, such incidents, alas, are not uncommon. Unsightly cracked and leaking eggs usually go into salads and other dishes that require fine cutting. After all, you can’t serve them to the table and you can’t paint them.

Rejection can be avoided by steaming or oven-cooking eggs. But there are nuances here too.

For a couple

The gentlest and most practical way to cook hard-boiled eggs

Pour water into the pan to a level of one and a half centimeters, place a special grill on the bottom. When the water boils, add the required number of eggs and turn on the timer for 11 minutes. When steamed, the whites turn out a little tougher than when boiled, but not rubbery.

Multicooker or steamer

Many housewives have adapted to boiling or steaming. At the same time, they write on culinary forums that eggs boiled in them literally jump out of their shells themselves, and their yolks do not turn green.

Cooking eggs in a slow cooker

It is usually written that a hard-boiled egg is cooked in a slow cooker for 10 minutes. But in practice, a lot depends on the model and power of the device, the cooking mode, and the amount of water poured into the bowl. To determine the ideal ratio of all parameters, sometimes you have to lime more than a dozen eggs.

In addition, when cooking eggs in a slow cooker and double boiler, in addition to temperature, pressure affects the result. If during regular cooking in water or steam it is not so important whether the egg will take 10 or 11 minutes to cook, then in the case of a multicooker (double boiler) every second matters.

Compare: The picture below shows eggs that were steamed for five, six and seven minutes.

At the fifth minute the yolk is still a little runny, at the sixth it’s just right, tender, bright yellow, and at the seventh it’s already loose, a greenish shell has formed.

Oven

This is a popular method of preparing hard-boiled eggs and has a number of advantages. Firstly, it is good when you need a lot of boiled eggs at once. Secondly, the eggs will not hit each other.