How To Make Perfect Hard or Soft Boiled Eggs (OPOS)

How To Make Perfect Hard or Soft Boiled Eggs (OPOS) by DK on Nov 9, 2016

For a blog that boasts of ovo-lacto vegetarian recipes, you might think I would have posted something as basic as Hard Boiled Eggs ages ago, wouldn't you? Well, you assumed wrong. Well, in my defence, I have a very good reason for it. That being, I had yet to find a method that made perfect hard boiled eggs where peeling the shells was also easy! "Don't add fresh eggs", they told me; "add to cold water first"; " no .... add to already boiling water"; "Salt! That's the answer, add it to the water to make peeling easy"; "Oh no...salt never works - Vinegar! Now you are talking"............. and it went on and on.

I judiciously tried them all. It would look like it worked 2 times, at times 3 but the 4th time? Same old issue. So every time I assumed I had hit the jackpot and thought to write a blog post, it would all go down south! The photoshoot would be a disaster since the eggs would all break up on me while the shells certainly didn't!!!!!

Then the RIGHT WAY happened to me. (The picture above? That's a check mark with eggs for those who didn't get it! :) ) When this pressure cooker OPOS® method came by, I started it out with skepticism. Who can blame me?!. 1st time - worked beautifully. OooooK. 2nd time - worked again. 3rd time - worked once again. Mmm........ 4th time - I was sure it would fall apart since 4th time unlucky seemed to be my thing. But it WORKED BEAUTIFULLY AGAIN! I was persistent; I can be, in very specific cases :). 5th, 6th, 7th,.........14th time - SAME STORY!.

So I decided to keep my 15th special and do a photoshoot. And guess what? You can see the result. I am jumping with joy since I haven't checked salt,vinegar,fresh eggs, old eggs, large egg, room temperature eggs, small egg - NOTHING! Aaah - the least amount of effort in this case turns out faaar better than the others :). If my story in the beginning seemed very familiar to yours and you nodded all through it, I would suggest trying out this method in the hope that yours has an ending similar to mine as well :)

Cook time: Under 15 min
Prep time: No prep time
Serves: 4-5 people
Yields: 8 Eggs

Ingredients

8 Eggs, see Tips
2 cups Water

Tips

1. Eggs: You can use 2 to 15 eggs in a 2L pressure cooker. If using 6 or less, use 1 cup of water. But number of whistles remain same.

Method

1. Place 8 eggs inside a 2 liter Pressure cooker. See Tips section for the number of eggs you can add.

2. Add 2 cups of water.

3. For 6 eggs or less, 1 cup of water is enough.

4. Close with the lid, place the weight on top and cook on high flame.

5. We need only 1 whistle - takes around 7-8 minutes. If you add more eggs, the first whistle might take longer - say 10-11 minutes but switch off the pressure cooker right after 1 whistle

6. Let the pressure settle down - takes about 5- 6 minutes. The hissing sound will gradually cease.

Note: For soft boiled eggs, release pressure.

7. Remove the weight, it should come out easily without any steam. Open the pan

8. and drain out the hot water.

9. Shake the pan so that the eggs crack a bit. Don't do it vigorously, it might break the eggs. Just a good 4-5 shakes does the job.

10. Fill it with cold water

11. and start peeling. I let it cool down a bit, about 2-3 minutes.

Note: Letting the eggs cool on their own cooks the eggs further. Depending on your taste preferences, you can either let it sit (hard boiled) or start peeling right away (medium boiled).

12. Now starts the best part. I start from the place where it already cracked a bit and

13. start peeling away the shell. The shell practically

14. begs to come off. Its that easy. It's the same story with every one of the eggs.

15. It's a like poetry :) Repeat with rest of the eggs and use as required.

No green rings on the yolks - cos there is no overcooking! Perfect every single time, irrespective the size of the eggs, how old/fresh they are etc.

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6 Comments

By Laurie on Nov 8, 2019

My kettle has three choices of weights. , 5, 10 and 15 pounds. Which do I use?

Unfortunately I am not familiar with your appliance, hence wont be able to help. --DK

By Nalini on May 4, 2017

This method of cooking eggs is perfect. It makes it so easy to peel and takes out the guess work out of cooking eggs. Thanks so much for sharing

I am so happy to see a fellow convert. Thank you Nalini for the feedback. --DK

By Prerna on Nov 17, 2016

Nice post..boiling Eggs might seem the easiest and simplest of tasks in cooking but anyone who has tried boiling eggs knows that it needs precision and quite a bit of technical knowledge about the process of boiling and cooking to get those perfect not too soft ..not too hard bjt just right kind of soft yummy boiled eggs..

By Gayatri on Nov 14, 2016

Hi DK.. thanks for coming back.. i guess i didn't let them rest in the cold water for a while - will try that next time. How many resting minutes would you say for a perfect hard boiled egg?

Its really hard to say since it varies depending on your weather/coldness of water etc. Try changing your water after letting it rest for 5 minutes (the water should be warm from the egg) and refill with cold water again. Let it rest for 5-6 minutes and then give it a try. Once you figure it out, from next time it should be easy. Hope this helps.:) --DK

By Gayatri on Nov 12, 2016

hi DK, this didn't work for me. i followed step by step recipe. the yolks looked like they could do more with a bit of a cooking. Fortunately, I was making bhurji so just let the eggs cook a bit longer but they were definitely not what I was expecting them to be. I liked the simplicity of the whole process and the fact that they were so easy to peel. May be next time I will let two whistles go.

Hey Gayatri, Can you walk me through what you did? Did you let the pressure settle? Did you let it sit in cold water for some time? Those usually help with the consistency as I mentioned in Step 11. Maybe it had not cooled down completely? Hopefully we can work through this every step of the way since I have been astounded myself at the simplicity and perfect results every time..--DK

By Siri on Nov 10, 2016

This post made my day! :D Pressure Cooker really simplifies the process. will give it a try this coming weekend. Siri

Hahahaha! You wouldn't believe it if I said that I infact thought of you right throughout drafting this post :) This is so perfect for you --DK