Chef’s technique for getting ‘perfect hard-boiled eggs’

A method to steam eggs creates the “perfect” hard-boiled egg according to Chef John. The chef is the founder of the Food Wishes platform, where she shares delicious recipes and tips, and tricks. His tasty food has become a hit with 4.33M people subscribing to his YouTube channel.

He demonstrated how steaming eggs can be even more effective at cooking them than boiling them. Chef John said: “I’m going to show you this not-so-secret technique for getting perfect hard-boiled eggs and by hard we mean not too hard, which unfortunately is how many people make them.”

John claimed his method works “amazingly well” and creates a superior yolk, which is still slightly soft, although fully cooked.

First, the chef puts a cup and a quarter of water into a three-quart saucepan. Then he places it on the hob and brings it to a boil.

Chef John explained: “The reason we’re using so little water is that we’re not going to boil these eggs we’re going to steam them, since steam is hotter and cooks much more efficiently than water.

“Sure, I could bore you by explaining all the science behind this once I learned it myself but who cares this works every time and successful results are the best kind of science.”

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Carefully place six eggs into the pan, but make sure not to break them. Then Chef John places the pan lid on, reduces the head to medium height, and sets a time for nine and a half minutes.

“Believe it or not that’s basically it,” he said. “As soon as that timer rings we will remove the eggs from heat and immediately head to the sink where we’re going to hit these with cold water to stop the cooking process.”

He peels the eggs and then cuts them in half to reveal a soft, but cooked egg. John said: “Our yolk is definitely cooked through and kind of firm but it is not dry and chalky I mean who the heck wants dry and chalky when you can have this?

“That yolk becomes almost ganache-like, okay it might sound bizarre but it almost has the texture of a fudge.”

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The food expert added: “Please note this technique works just as well for soft-boiled eggs.”

Chef John advised steaming an egg for seven minutes for a soft-boiled egg, which creates a “perfect molten middle.”

The Youtuber and chef also shared a clever hack to make eggs easy to peel. He said: “Speaking of peeling, here’s one trick I really like.”

He explains he rolls the eggs along the side of the pan to slightly crack the shell. He said: “Just crack the shell here and there and then I’ll fill that back up with cold water and just let them sit like that while they continue to cool down.

“What happens is that water gets between the shell and the egg and once these are fully chilled you’ll see they’re extremely easy to peel.

“Once you get it started that shell is going to peel off so easily. I’m not kidding these will almost peel themselves.”