basics

How to Boil Eggs

/ peacockdreams / Leave a comment
A photo of boiled eggs sliced in half with ground pink peppercorns and kosher salt sprinkled over them on a white background

It should be dead simple to boil an egg and it is – to just boil it. Boiling a nice-looking egg with the yolk just the way you like it isn’t always so easy. Nature can be uncooperative and we wind up with eggs scarred and pockmarked from sticking to the shell. Sometimes we get the timing wrong and wind up with a yolk that isn’t the right consistency. Fear not! I can help. This is my tried and true technique for getting nice smooth boiled eggs with perfect yolks.

Ingredients

  • eggs
  • water

Instructions

  1. When boiling eggs, fresh is not your friend. Eggs that have sat longer have had more time for the inner membrane to separate from the shell. This allows the shell to come off much more easily during peeling. If you know you want to make many boiled eggs at once, it usually best to buy the eggs a week or so in advance.
  2. Though it isn’t completely necessary, allowing eggs to warm up on the counter just bit can discourage cracking in the water. 5 minutes is usually enough.
  3. Fill a pot with enough water to cover the eggs and bring it to a boil. Use a slotted spoon to place eggs in the boiling water. Take care as sometimes cold eggs will crack when they touch the hot water. Allowing steam to warm them a bit before submerging them can help prevent cracking.
  4. Adjust the heat so that the water is at a steady medium boil.
    • For hard cooked eggs, allow them to cook for 12-13 minutes.
    • For ‘jammy’ yolk eggs, allow them to cook for 6.5 minutes.
    • For soft cooked runny-yolk eggs, allow them to cook for 5 minutes.
  5. Remove the eggs promptly and plunge into cold water. This will stop the eggs from cooking so that the yolks do not discolor. Allow them to cool for 2-5 minutes.The shells should come off easily without sticking to the white. On some occasions I will get a stubborn egg that refuse to cooperate, but by and large this will give you nice, smooth boiled eggs to enjoy as they are or in a recipe.

Simply Perfect Jasmine Rice

/ peacockdreams / 1 Comment
A photo of an inexpensive rice cooker on a white background

I cook a lot of south, east and southeast Asian recipes. It’s often easy to modify them to be low FODMAP and they are most commonly eaten with rice. Making perfect rice can be as easy as using a nice rice cooker, however the nice ones take up a fair bit of space and they can be expensive. It’s possible to get fantastic results from the small, cheap rice cookers (like the one above). I’ll show you how.

Makes ~2 servings.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup jasmine rice
  • 1 cup water

Instructions

A photo of rice being rinsed in a Japanese rinsing bowl
  1. Begin by rinsing the rice. This is very important. Rinsing rice removes extra starch plus any dirt or nasty stuff. Use cool water and agitate in in a bowl with your hand. Alternatively you can use a rice washing bowl similar to this one. Keep rinsing until the water is nearly clear. Drain well.
  2. Transfer the rinsed rice to the rice cooker. Add the water. Allow the rice to soak for a minimum of 30 minutes and a maximum of 1 hour.
  3. Turn the rice cooker on. The cycle should take about 20 minutes. Allow the rice to rest with the lid on for another 10 minutes after cooking has stopped.
  4. Fluff the rice and it’s ready to eat!