Boiled Eggs
Eggs may be cooked in the shell in either one of two ways: First, put into cold water and bring to a boil. By the time the boiling-point is reached the whites will be sufficiently cooked and of a soft, jelly-like consistency. Second, put the eggs into rapidly boiling water. Remove to the back of the stove and allow the eggs to stand three or four minutes.
Two methods for eggs in the shell, both of them gentle. Neither produces what most people now call a hard-boiled egg, and both depend on residual heat rather than sustained boiling.
- "The back of the stove"On a coal or wood range this was the cool end of the top, holding water hot but well below a boil. On a modern hob, take the pan off the heat entirely, cover it, and let it stand. Leaving it on even the lowest gas or electric setting will keep the water near boiling and overshoot the timing.
- The first method is unpredictableStarting eggs in cold water and stopping when the water reaches a boil gives a set-but-jellied white only if the pan, the volume of water and the burner behave as the author's did. A heavy pan of cold water on a slow range takes far longer to come up than a thin pan on a fast one, and the eggs cook the whole time. Judge by total elapsed time, not by the first bubble.
- Three or four minutes is shortIn the second method, three or four minutes off the heat leaves a runny white next to the shell with a cold-fridge egg. Use eggs at room temperature, or allow five to six minutes for a set white and a liquid yolk.
- Egg size has driftedA large egg today is about 2 oz in the shell. Eggs were not graded then as they are now, so the average market egg of 1911 may well have run smaller. Add roughly half a minute for extra-large.
- Water depth matters more than heatWater depth -- Enough water to cover the eggs by an inch carries the heat needed to finish them off the burner. A shallow pan cools too fast and leaves the whites slack.
- CrackingLowering cold eggs into rapidly boiling water is the usual cause of split shells. A slotted spoon, and a pinprick in the broad end, both help.
- Undercooked eggs and who should avoid themNeither method brings the yolk anywhere near 160F. Soft eggs are ordinary food, but for the very young, the elderly, pregnant women or anyone immune-compromised, use pasteurized-in-shell eggs or cook until the yolk is firm.
- YieldOne or two eggs per person; the timings hold for up to four or five eggs in a medium saucepan, longer if the pan is crowded.
Good Things to Eat (1911) was written by Rufus Estes, born into slavery in Tennessee and later a cook on Pullman private railcars and in the subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation in Chicago. It is one of the earliest cookbooks published by an African American chef, and much of it reads like the working notebook of a man who had to feed passengers and executives at short notice. That practical bent shows here: the two methods differ chiefly in whether you have a burner free, and both were written for a range with hot and cool zones rather than a dial.