It’s officially Summer! I know because it is hotter than Hades here right now. For most of us that means picnics, cook-outs and family reunions aplenty. Here at Rooster Hooch Farm, our hens are enjoying the fabulous weather and increased free range time. They are rewarding us by providing my family with more eggs than we can possibly use. We are getting upwards to 2 dozen eggs a day. So what’s better than some homemade egg salad or deviled eggs to take along to the get-togethers. You may have even noticed our recipes…wink wink…
Okay, so who among us has not enthusiastically put a dozen eggs in a pot of water, set it on the stove and turned the burner on high, all the while hoping beyond hope that at least half of the eggs will peel easily enough to make our favorite egg recipe? Why do they sometimes peel so easily that the shells practically fall off in your hand and other times it seems like you would lose less of the egg white if you used a potato peeler? We’ve all heard the tip of putting a little salt or baking soda in the water. That will pull some of the moisture out of the egg and it works sometimes, but it seems to be hit or miss, especially with really fresh eggs. 
Perhaps the idea of using older eggs holds the key. A lot of recipes even say to use eggs that are at least 10 days old. If you are using store bought eggs, that base is covered. Most store bought eggs in the U.S. are at least 30 days old, but more likely around 2 months. The reason older eggs TEND to peel better is that as eggs age some of the moisture is lost through the shell and the air sac inside the egg enlarges. Ever noticed how when you peel a store bought egg that you hard boiled that there is a flat spot on the bottom? Less “stuff” inside the shell means easier peel. But we are talking FRESH eggs here. What’s the point of using farm fresh eggs if you have to let them sit until they are old to be able to peel them easily? The secret actually has little to do with the age of the egg. So, is there a closely guarded secret to perfectly peeling hardboiled eggs? Did the secret die with the Mayan Empire? Is that the secret locked in the monoliths at Stonehenge? Perhaps that’s what the Mona Lisa has been smiling about all this time.
So, here it is….drum roll please… The secret to fool proof easy peel hard boiled eggs is… It’s silly really, instead of the putting the eggs in the pot of water and heating the water and the eggs at the same time, heat the water first. It’s as simple as the difference between cold start and hot start. What you need to do is bring the water to a boil and then carefully lower the eggs down into the water. I stress carefully because you don’t want to get splashed by the hot water and if the egg taps the bottom of the pot hard enough to compromise the integrity of the shell, it will split and the egg white will start to seep out into the water. The scientific term for that is an “egg-splosion.” Okay, maybe not so scientific… This won’t hurt the eggs and for egg salad, you would never notice, but if you want perfectly shaped eggs for deviled eggs, you want the shells in tact until the whites have set. I use a kitchen spider to lower the eggs into the water one at a time. I should mention though that the fresher the eggs, the more likely they seem to be to “splode” in the water.
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Then allow the eggs to cook for the allotted time. I am writing this for hard-boiled eggs not soft boiled, keep that in mind. I personally boil 10-12 minutes then turn off the burner and leave the eggs cool with the water. If you are in a hurry, you can shock the eggs in ice water, but I have found it’s just an added step. The benefit of leaving the eggs to cool with the water is that the yolk will be consistently cooked throughout. At 10-12 minute boil time, the yolk will still have a translucent quality to the center. 
It IS cooked, but if you are planning to use the eggs to garnish a salad, you will want the yolks to have a consistent appearance. For deviled eggs or egg salad, the appearance of the yolk obviously doesn’t matter.
When the eggs are cool enough to handle, tap the egg on a flat surface and roll it so the shell is crackled, then peel away the shell. It helps to run the egg under cool water while you are peeling, but honestly I don’t usually need to. They should peel perfectly almost every time. I have to say “almost” because without a doubt, there will be a prudish egg in the batch that resists being undressed and I don’t want to get angry emails about being fooled by my fool proof method. Just before I wrote this article, I boiled 3 batches of eggs, 2 dozen eggs per batch. Since we get nearly 2 dozen eggs a day here, the eggs were no more that 4 days old, that’s pretty fresh!! In each batch, there was one “egg-splosion” and one egg that stuck to the shell, so I’m going to call it at just over a 90% success rate. I took a picture of one of the batches. I know someone you OCD readers are counting the eggs on the plate…no, it’s not all 2 dozen, they wouldn’t all fit on the plate. That and (sheepish grin) I had already eaten 2 of them…