egg

How to boil a egg.

Simple step by step guide to boiling a egg.

Ingredients

    1. Egg. Preferably egg shaped, with somewhat still intact shell. Also check that the egg is not already hard-boiled. This can be done by spinning said egg. If egg spins freely and uniformly, then it's probably cooked. On the other hand, if the spin is rather wobbly, then either it is uncooked and the fluid in it has its own inertia interacting with the egg, or the chick in it is getting rather dizzy.
    2. Saucepan, or a small pot, or an empty can, or even a vase if you're desperate.
    3. Sharp pointy object, e.g. a tack, or a needle, or pin, or even a mm drill bit.
    4. Water. Fresh water is preferable.
    5. Heat source. Microwaves are definitely out with egg boiling. Try something conventional like a stove. Plain friction by rubbing sticks together tends to be a bit time consuming, and even despairing.
    6. A gry of salt. This is mainly so that you learn what 'gry' means. For future reference.
    7. Timer. Though an atomic clock is probably an overkill, a time device that has stopped may be slightly unreliable as well. If you can't find a clock or something (and you can't find your own pulse) you may just have to do tertiary physics. This is where they teach you about how to tell the time elapsed from the swings of a pendulum.

Method

    1. Pour water into pot/pan/saucepan/vase. There should be enough to at least float the egg. Note, if egg does not float you may have a dud.
    2. Place egg in water.
    3. From the way the egg floats in water you should be able to tell which part of it the air pocket is. It will be the part that floats highest.
    4. Now make a tiny air hole at that part of the egg using your pin/needle/tack/drill (one will do). This is so that when the egg is boiling the expanding air can escape without cracking the shell, and spilling it's contents into the water.
    5. Place on heat source, and heat until desired hardness is reached. This will depend on several factors, such as intensity of heat source, amount of water, the degree of hardness desired. But usually, 10 minutes is quite ample, and 5 minutes will be quite sufficient. Maybe 2 minutes will be enough too!
    6. Remove egg with pot/pan/vase, or spoon or ladle, and let cool.
    7. Congratulations! You now have a hard boiled egg.
    8. Go ahead! Boil another one. ;)
    9. End.

My acknowledgments and gratitude to Gary Peach for HTML-ising this recipe.

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