You've Been Peeling Hard-Boiled Eggs For Egg Salad Wrong Your Whole Life
Hello, lovers of egg salad, Cobb salad-devotees, and well, anyone else who just happens to enjoy noshing on a hard-boiled egg now and then. We have some startling news about egg-peeling, and it's likely to have you questioning whether you've been peeling hard-boiled eggs wrong your whole life. But we promise that once you get past that initial feeling of dismay, you will be so thoroughly thrilled that you'll never look back again.
Ready? Here it is. The easiest, cleanest, least-annoying way to peel a hard-boiled egg is to not peel it at all (via No Biggie). Instead, place it on a cutting board, take out a steak knife (or any similarly-sized knife that has a sharp serrated edge. This is the right knife to use for cutting things that are hard on the outside and soft on the inside (via Recipe Tips). Slice right through that baby, shell and all. Now all that's left to do is take a spoon and scoop out those cleanly cleaved halves, like you're scooping out a melon.
That's it. That's all there is to it. If any remnants of shell remain, simply brush them off, and get mashing, slicing, and/or noshing with your upgraded egg salad.
But what if you want your hard-boiled egg to remain whole?
So, now that we've established that you've been peeling hard-boiled eggs wrong your whole life, at least when it comes to making egg salad. But let's say you're not interested in making egg salad (for the moment). While slicing right through a hard-boiled egg — shell and all — may well be the perfect, cleanest way to de-shell hard-boiled eggs for a salad, it may not "a-peel" to you for other purposes. For example, perhaps you prefer slicing your eggs whole for Cobb salad, or perhaps when it comes to snacking on hard-boiled eggs, you prefer the aesthetics of a smooth, ovoid-shaped edible. In that case, we have a simple solution, which comes from Tim Ferriss, author of the bestselling book, The 4-Hour Chef: How to Cook Like a Pro, Learn Anything, and Live the Good Life.
According to Ferriss, all you have to do is lightly tap each end of the egg on a hard surface, wipe away the resulting broken shell, take a deep breath, and blow hard on one of the broken ends of the egg (via YouTube). Et voilà, your hard-boiled egg will come flying through the other broken end, and all you have to do is catch it in your hand.