How to Cook a Soft Boiled Egg Perfectly

The basic boiled egg recipes include:

1. Soft boiled eggs with the white not fully set

2. Soft boiled with white fully set and yolk still soft

3. Hard boiled eggs are good for sandwiches, salads, added to potato salad, picnics and party food.

Ideally the eggs should be at room temperature before cooking. Boiled eggs can be subdivided into three forms. As mentioned above. We tend to associate the kind of eggs one has for breakfast, in the soft boiled categories of either 1 or 2 in the list above. 

Without getting into the cultural differences in egg preference, suffice it to say that Americans like white shelled eggs and the British favour brown shelled eggs.

Perfect Soft Boiled Egg Recipes Large size

Cooking Boiled Eggs medium and large in the same pot at the same time  

Some people do not like the whites of their eggs to be on the runny side, and yet other people like them just that way. When we have a difference in preferences like this, which is quite common. We need to have a way to cook the eggs, all at the same time, in the same pot, as this will save time and give everyone the eggs that they want, at virtually the same time.

Boiled Egg Real Time Movie

Not much happens as you would imagine, for the first 6 minutes 52 seconds of the video as the water comes up to the boiling point. Watch out for a thumbs up on the screen which means that this is where the timings become important. Support molometer's blog

There is no audio on the video as we are surrounded by enough racket already. A little silence is sometimes welcome.

The best way to tackle this apparently simple task, is with a little scientific observation. Watch and learn. Luckily I have been cooking eggs for many years and have done the experiments numerous times, so you will not have to.

N.B. The video was accomplished in one shot and one take. There are no edits. I know this may be challenging for some people with low attention spans but in the interests of accurately replicating the results, no video tricks were allowed.
I am confident that you will be successful, when you cook your next egg.

Follow the timings in the video and you will cook your eggs to your liking. Timing is everything, or should it be, everything is in the timing.

The care that you take in cooking an egg will influence the result. Now you will know when your egg is cooked to your liking. Every time.

Cooking the perfect soft boiled egg

When we want to cook a soft boiled egg for breakfast. In other words an egg that is capable of being dipped or dunked with toasted bread (cut into soldiers(strips) then it is essential to consider first the size of the eggs to be boiled.

In the video and still photos you may notice that two of the eggs are medium sized, and the other two eggs are large.

The time it takes to cook these eggs will vary of course as they are of different sizes.

We could get into a whole load of mathematical equations to figure this out but there is nothing like good old experimentation and experience.

I selected two different size eggs deliberately, to demonstrate that you can cook both sizes of eggs together in the same pot. As long as you keep a close eye on the time, you can cook them both to the soft boiled state. 
This represents a 100% improvement in thermal efficiency and of course very time saving.

Perfectly cooked Soft Boiled Egg Recipes Medium size

The traditional accompaniment to the soft boiled eggs is toasted bread. You can use either wholemeal or wholegrain bread which is tastier and healthier than white bread but any toasted bread will do for dunking or dipping into the egg.

These can be buttered with either butter, or one of those other spreadable products of your choice.

The toast should then be sliced into 12 mm or ½ inch strips. (these are known as soldiers)

This size is important, as it is in accordance with the diameter of the hole left when taking the top of the egg.

You may want to add a little salt and pepper to taste and that's about it. Enjoy.

This tribute video by Peter Adamson is for all fans of soft boiled eggs. 

Remember that when you take the eggs from the boiling water they will continue to cook, so it is essential to open the eggs to ensure that you keep the yolk soft. You could drop them into cold water which will stop the cooking process, but then you will have a cold egg yolk.

Hard boiled eggs

If you leave the eggs in the hot water for another two minutes they will be hard boiled with both the yolk and the white set solid.

Hard boiled eggs will keep, for a couple of days. If you want to keep them for longer, pop them into some vinegar. This will preserve them almost indefinitely.

You would think that just about anyone would know how to boil an egg, but this is not the case. It is a skill that has to be learned, just like anything else.

Any person that wishes to consider themselves as a cook, a chef or just a good home cook should treat the cooking of an egg with as much respect as the cooking of any other high value food stuff.

The versatility of the humble egg is really quite incredible. If you master their preparation and cooking you will never be short of ideas, when it comes to feeding yourself, friends or family.

Why did I consider sharing the method described above. I saw that it was needed.

When researching this article. I came across many egg timers and equations on how to calculate the cooking time of a boiled egg, but as eggs can vary considerable in size, it is one of those occasions where science theory must take a backseat to empirical experimentation and or real life experience.

In other words to actually cook the eggs and prove the results.As you have seen from the video.

The eggs used in the video were free range, from a farm near to me. They travelled about 300 yards, so their carbon footprint was negligible.

These locally sourced eggs, tend to be of a much wider variety of size and colour as the farmer is not at the diktats of the supermarkets, who consider anything that doesn't conform to their rules as non-standard, and which they tend to reject. Good news for me.

Green Eggs are quite common

Some like white eggs and some favour brown eggs but who likes green eggs. They all taste the same. Market these above as Rainbow Eggs and they will fly off the shelf.

This method works, so good luck in your efforts. Hope it is eggs-actly what you were searching for.