Perfect, easy peeling, boiled eggs

Back when I worked in a commercial kitchen making perfect hard boiled eggs involved steaming them in the steamer in a perforated pat for exactly 14 minutes. It was easy. But now that I'm retired I have to use the stove and boil them. Can you believe that I had to do some research into how to make the perfect boiled egg? And what I found was that there are many, many opinions on how to do this. I wanted an egg that didn't have that gray overcooked edge on the yolk and that was consistently easy to peel. Two separate problems to solve. I already knew that 10 minutes of boiling gave me an acceptable egg most of the time but the problem was the peeling. I like to make deviled eggs for pot luck type of situations and you want your deviled eggs to look appealing (get the pun) hee, hee. So with my research here is what I worked out. Your mileage may vary, this is what works for the altitude in Minnesota. I know for a fact that it doesn't work in the Colorado mountains at 9,000 feet - the eggs have to cook for some unknown time longer - I'll work on it when we go to the cabin this summer.

Take the eggs out of the refrigerator and put them into a pan. Fill the pan with HOT tap water and put it on medium heat. Bring to a steady but not hard boil and boil for 10 minutes (use a timer). When the timer has about 2 minutes left to go, prepare an ice cold water bath for the eggs. Put a tray of ice cubes into a bowl and fill with cold tap water. When the timer goes off, immediatly drain the eggs and rinse with cold tap water. Then put them into the ice cold water bath and leave them until the ice melts. When you peel them, crack them all around the middle of the egg and the shell should just come off in large sections. Works for me - try it and let me know if it works for you. Popular folk lore says that you should only use old eggs for boiling but I've used them fresh from the farm and it's worked.

Here's one of the things I do with boiled eggs. This "recipe" comes from my grandmother so that must qualify it as an heritage recipe - except that my kids and the Compadre think it's gross so the recipe is bound to stop with me. Anyway, take a peeled egg and slice it. Drizzle oil and vinegar on it and then sprinkle salt and pepper on it. Mmmm, brings back memories every time.