As a child I hated hardboiled eggs… sure, they were fun to decorate at Easter, but eating them? EWWW NO WAY!!! Why? Well, sad to say, but my family had the habit of cooking them to death – creating those chalky yolks with the sulfurous black/green edges. Oddly enough, I would eat hardboiled eggs from restaurants, or when overseas (just thinking about the delightful orange yolked eggs in Germany made me hungry right now), but didn’t think that this would be possible at home. As if the restaurants had access to some kind of special, elite egg cooking technology. Shame on me.
Once again, Alton Brown to the rescue. Granted, even he had some help with this one, as this is the traditional (Julia Child also demonstrated this method) way to cook hardboiled eggs. Don’t worry, even with all this name-dropping, its very very easy.
Before you start, make sure you have:
- Raw eggs to be cooked – if you wish them to be easier to peel, use eggs that are a little older. Check the dates on packages (which you should do anyway, RIGHT?). I use eggs from my friends at Hermitage Farms, so they are super fresh originally – I always save a couple dozen for a few days and then boil those.
- Stockpot (if cooking a lot of eggs) or medium saucepan (for cooking 4-8 eggs), there needs to be enough room for the eggs to be in a single layer – no stacking of the eggs! NO!
- Large mixing bowl (put it in the sink)
- At least 1 tray’s worth of ice cubes
- Kitchen timer, or other timer (I use the one on my phone)
- Pasta spoon, ladle or similar deep spoon for quickly fishing out eggs
OK! Ready? Put the eggs in your chosen cooking vessel, once again, in a single layer. Add cold tap water water – enough to cover them completely with at least 1″-2″ of water above them – but not so much that you’ll risk them boiling over. I don’t ever really boil them that hard anyway, but… you never know. Place the eggs on the stovetop and set the burner to “high” and bring to a rolling boil. As soon as the boiling is rolling however (and you must pay attention), remove the pot/pan from the heat and let it sit undisturbed for 10-12 minutes (I only do this for 10 minutes, because I like ever-so-slightly undercooked eggs). While the eggs are sitting, go ahead and put the ice cubes and cold tap water in the large mixing bowl in the sink. When time is up, carefully remove the eggs from the hot water and place them in the icy cold water. This is where your previously useless pasta spoon comes in handy. 
Let them cool very well (I usually let them sit in the ice water for a while – 30 minutes even), then store them (after eating a few) in a gallon ziplock bag in the fridge. You want to store them in some kind of container as they can give off an odor in your refrigerator. Eat all of them in 5 days – as if that is really going to be a problem…
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