Cracking the Egg

We’ve all been there: You boil some eggs, timing it down to the minute to get that perfect yolk, and then shock them in cold water. Now for the fun part: peeling. Often it’s a total mess, with tiny bits of shell sticking to meaty bits of white, and in the end you have a pockmarked, albeit shell-less, mess in your hands.

Dear listeners, there is a better way. The cooking geek to guide us is Jeff Potter, a software engineer by day, kitchen science ninja by night, who has cooked his way through dozens of eggs—including those of the emu and ostrich variety—to develop the perfect recipe for easy-to-peel hard-boiled eggs. And here’s the thing: It doesn’t even involve boiling. All of Potter’s egg science secrets will be revealed in this eggstravagant episode of Food Failures.

For Potter’s step-by-step method to hard-cooked eggs, click here. And for an egg dyeing activity, click here.