From an early age, Monkey has enjoyed eating eggs in all forms – scrambled, over-easy, deviled, you name it.  But nothing satisfies her more these days than giving a good-smack to a hard-boiled egg, listening to the crack and peeling off the battered outer shell.  And now that her fine motor skills are improving, it’s not quite such a mess for me either.

My toddler is not quite so picky about the inside of the egg, but I do hate to see an olive-green edge around the yolk.  Thus began the hunt for a perfect hard-boiled egg.  What I learned through experimentation is that the key is two-fold: a)  the egg needs to be thoroughly submerged in the water, at least by an inch and then b) the egg does not need to be boiled for very long at all.

Try this recipe:

Hard-Boiled Eggs

• Place half-dozen eggs in a deep sauce or saute pan and cover with water by at least an inch.  Bring water to a boil using high heat.  Once the water is boiling, remove the pan from the stove, cover it, and let it rest for about 10 minutes.
• After sitting, immerse the eggs in a ice cold water bath for about 5 minutes or return eggs to the carton and put back in the fridge.

At this point, I usually make a mental note to come back later and mark the hard-boiled eggs with a big black H so that I don’t mistake them for uncooked eggs.  Incidentally, these eggs are perfect for use in an egg salad or a deviled eggs recipe – both ideas that have on occasion worked with my picky eater (but not universally).

I broke down and gave “monk” (new nickname, short for monkey) an egg to crack, since my friend Megin lets her son crack their eggs. Next step was to hand over the whisk. Oh, if only you knew what this means to a ‘type A’ type! Most of the egg stayed in the bowl. I fried it up and she preceded to ignore the whole thing. She just wanted to scramble an egg.