Hard-Boiled Eggs

Steps

1. Boil6 min
   high, rolling boil, lid on
   • eggs
   water + salt in a pot wide enough to hold the eggs in a single layer — crowding means the eggs at the bottom sit against the pan and cook faster than the ones above them. The salt does nothing for flavor through the shell; it raises the odds that a hairline crack seals itself as the leaking white sets on contact.
2. Boil11 min
   lively boil, uncovered, timer started when the boil recovers
   + eggs, lowered in one at a time on a spoon. The boil will stall for 30–60 seconds as the cold eggs absorb heat; wait for it to come back before you start the clock or everything after this is guesswork. Eleven minutes gives a fully set, still-bright yolk. Past about fourteen, sulfur from the white migrates to the iron in the yolk and you get the gray-green ring and the sulfurous smell — that ring is overcooking made visible, not a defect in the egg.
3. Rest0 min
   placeholder
4. Cook5 min
   ice water, fully submerged
   eggs moved straight from the boil into the ice bath. This does two jobs: it stops carryover cooking dead, and it contracts the white away from the shell so air can enter at the blunt end. Skip it and you will tear the egg apart trying to peel it.
5. Peel3 min
   under running water
   crack the blunt end first — the air cell sits there and gives you a starting flap of membrane — then roll the egg under your palm to craze the shell all over and slip the membrane off in one or two sheets. Very fresh eggs (under a week) have a low pH that glues the membrane to the white and will always fight you; week-old eggs peel clean, which is why this is the one recipe where older is better.
6. Season1 min
   • black pepper
   halve and season the cut face with salt + pepper. Salt on the shell was never going to get in; salt on the yolk is the whole point.