Steam Boiled Eggs!

I love hard boiled eggs. They are the perfect portable breakfast and protein punch. I'm trying to eat one within 30 minutes of waking up (there's a story about that for another post). My mom taught be how to hard-boil them when I was a kid, but part of that lesson was waiting until they cool completely to peel them, and then always peeling them under a stream of cold water to deal with all the bits of shell that get stuck to the egg. There goes your portability. I needed something easier.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one on the internet who had the same issues. There are a lot of people with a lot of complicated, multi-step procedures for boiling the perfect egg. They all looked like too much work-- Until I stumbled upon this entry from Cooking with Kids. I was psyched: This method promised beautiful hardboiled eggs that peeled like a dream. Couldn't wait!

The first time I made them I happily cracked into my first egg expecting a perfect opaque oval. Not so much. I got a half-cooked egg. I figured I didn't steam them long enough. Tried it again and doubled my "cook" time. Again, half-cooked egg and full-cooked disappointment. I read carefully through the directions to figure out what I did wrong and finally realized I just interpreted "simmer" differently than the author did. That or we're in totally different altitudes. Or something. Anyway, I realized that she was talking about how you need a lot of water so that you don't simmer it all away while the eggs were cooking. I was getting no where close to that. I think my eggs were just getting a tepid little sauna session on my stove's simmer setting, when I actually need to keep things to at least a low boil. Tried it again and got my awesome eggs :)

 So, here's how it goes:

• Fill a pot with water just to just below the point where your steamer insert will come to rest*
• Add the eggs to your steamer insert, put the insert into the water/pot, cover and bring to a boil over high heat
• Once you notice the water is boiling, drop the heat to medium (you want to keep the water at a low-to-medium boil, but not a "rolling" boil) and set the timer for 20 minutes,
• When the timer goes off, your eggs are done perfectly.**

* You don't want to cover the eggs with any water. If you just have a steamer inserts that sits in an inch or so of water, you will probably run out before the 20 minutes are over. The easiest way to handle that is probably to raise up your steamer. (I used a big sheet of foil and a couple of binder clips to wrap a deck of sorts around the legs of the steamer).

** Be smarter than I was. The first time you do this, sacrifice one egg to the cause at the 20 minute mark and make sure it's cooked the way you like it. Don't wait until the next day to find out that it's still raw when you were looking forward to chopping it into your spinach and bacon salad...and to then realize that the other 11 eggs are raw (and ruined) too. If you check at the 20 minute mark and they're still raw, you can raise the heat and salvage the bunch.