I've been trying for a few weeks now to perfect a soft-boiled egg. Not much luck. I've tried a few boiling methods with mixed success. First was to bring the water to a boil, then drop the eggs in. Problem with this method was that I would often have the shells crack while boiling releasing the white cloud into the water (yuck). I then read about the method where you put the eggs in and then bring the water to a boil. Problem with that method was that I couldn't consistently get a timing on when to pull the eggs out for a soft boil. I finally settled on the method of bringing the water to a boil with the eggs in from the beginning. Once the water started a roiling boil, I'd remove it from heat and then wait a few minutes before peeling. It took me a few tries but I finally got it to the point where I got a great soft-boiled egg. Here's my steps with photos:
1. Put eggs in water with a little sea salt. Turn heat to medium high.
2. Once water first reaches the roiling boil, turn off the heat.
3. After 2 minutes, pour out the hot water and run the eggs under cold water. Then drain the cold water and peel.
4. Here you see the peeled product (with a nice latte). As you can see, the outer yolk is solid but not cooked through. I don't like the really soft-boiled eggs where the yolk is completely raw. Have to work on my peeling technique though. Took more egg white off than I wanted.
5. Just bit into the yolk. Still soft on the inside but nicely encapsulated by a thin layer of cooked yolk!
Practice makes perfect. Gotta get it to the right point where the peeling of the eggs is easy. Supposedly, I have to time the peeling so there is a tiny layer of steam between the shell and the egg white which makes peeling a snap.
