Published March 1, 1999.
An egg with a perfectly creamy yolk, tender white, and no green ring results from a simple bring-it-to-a-boil method.
Hard-cooking an egg can be a crapshoot. There's no way to watch the proteins cook under the brittle shell of an uncracked egg, and you certainly can't poke it with an instant-read thermometer. The signs of the hard-cooked egg that has been left to sit in a pot of boiling water for 20 minutes or more are all too familiar: rubbery white, chalky yolk, and an off-green ring marrying the two. While undercooked eggs are less likely to appear, they sometimes do, and they are better suited for breakfast than for egg salad.
To turn out perfect hard-cooked eggs--with moist and creamy yolks, firm yet tender whites, and no trace of a green ring--consistently.
We finally got our foolproof recipe by tinkering just a little with a technique recommended by the American Egg Board: Start the eggs in cold water, bring the water to a boil, then remove the pan from the heat and let the eggs sit for 15 minutes. Our tests showed that 10 minutes of sitting time was enough; our tasters agreed that these were perfectly cooked eggs.
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