Hard-boiled eggs on a bagel. With cheese.

Hard-boiled eggs are delightfully simple. All you really need to hard-boil an egg is about 15 minutes, some boiling water and an egg. They are also fairly filling and can be utilized in a number of dishes such as deviled eggs and egg salad.

If you happen to be pressed for time or don’t have/like mayonnaise, just slice the egg thin and put it on some sort of bread. Maybe something like…leftover bagels. The egg bagels (Eggels?) to the right are simple; a cut and toasted bagel with a piece of cheese, one sliced, hard-boiled egg and some salt and pepper.

They make for a fairly substantial lunch and are easy. Plus you can add just about anything you want. A slice of tomato, light mayonnaise and some spinach would be good. Add a piece of goetta or bacon and you have a breakfast sandwich. Some chipotle ranch dressing and leftover chicken breast, maybe. The world is your oyster. Make a seafood bagel.

If you have never made a hard-boiled egg, fear not. I have. A hard-boiled egg will keep for a while, so you might as well make a few. Set your egg(s), shell intact, in a pot with at least enough water to cover them. Turn the stove on and get the pot up to a nice rolling boil. Depending on how fast your stove is it should take about 10 minutes (or a little less) of boiling to cook the egg through. They will be very, very hot.

The egg is less likely to crack due to sudden temperature change if you have it in the pot as it starts to boil. Adding an egg to a pot of boiling water can result in cracking and an annoying mess.

Set the eggs aside until they cool and put them back in the fridge until you need them. If you’re into instant gratification and want your egg now, put it in a bowl of cold water in the freezer for a few minutes.

There are a few ways to approach cracking a hard-boiled egg. If you don’t care whether or not it stays intact, just crack and peel. My personal favorite is to grip the egg in one hand to make a fist, then punching my open palm. The egg will crack (or squash if you use too much force) and you’ll probably feel a little cooler. Assuming you do care about the look of the egg, a little more care would be wise.  There will be a space of air at the bottom of the egg called an air cell. That is a good place to start if you’re not used to peeling an egg. Crack that and do your best to peel the entire shell away with the thin white skin that will be attached to the shell.

Slicing an egg is fairly simple. I find it’s best to take a very sharp paring knife and just press it through the egg. Be careful not to press it through your finger as well. A cutting board would be ideal. The yoke will provide some resistance, but that shouldn’t cause too much trouble.

Edit:

(The Real) Chris is right. Adding a little salt to the water as you boil it will make peeling the egg easier. Also older eggs are apparently easier to peel (as opposed to farm-fresh).

Picture and truffle by Devin, who happens to be a much better photographer.

A couple of weeks ago Devin went home. She promised that she would have some sort of surprise when she got back. The next day she was telling me that her hands were all red. I was, understandably, confused as to what in the world she could be making.

When she got back I was given a ball of chocolate and told to just eat it. Not one to turn down food, I of course did. It turns out she made chocolate truffles, or “cake bites” filled with red velvet cake. I love red velvet cake.

She had a few of the same problems I did when I made my Oreo truffles a few weeks back. Specifically, keeping the center cold and the chocolate hot. I made a second batch of Oreo truffles a week after I made my first batch. I took them out of the freezer five at a time instead of all at once, which kept the centers nice and solid. Devin and I both had to deal with horrible melting balls our first time around.

“My first batch that I started dipping was a small disaster and turned out pretty ugly looking. I had problems with the temperature of the cake; they weren’t cold enough. So even before half-way through the batch was dipped the cake started to get room temperature and began crumbling a little bit in the chocolate…”

Double boilers are a wonderful way to melt chocolate, sure. The problem is keeping the chocolate molten enough that it coats evenly but not so hot that it burns and double boilers use indirect heat. The chocolate (or cheese) sit about a pot of boiling water, meaning that the steam does all the work. It takes a bit of time for the water to get up to a high enough temperature to create steam. At the same time it is difficult to get the chocolate away from the heat, as the steam is going to keep rising for a while after the stove is turned off.

If the chocolate starts to burn your best bet is to just start over. Devin has more experience with chocolate than I do, so her chocolate came out much nicer than mine. The trick I learned is to just watch the chocolate. If it starts to get a bit lumpy as it dries or doesn’t stir smooth in the double boiler, get some heat back under it until it does. At the same time though the chocolate should not be so hot that it scalds you if you dip your finger in it.

Go take a look at Devin’s blog and give her cake bites a try. Devin has a better grasp of sweet treats than I do, so I’m thinking about outsourcing the chocolate making to her.

St. Valentine’s Day Oreo Truffles

For Valentine’s Day I made Oreo Truffles. I have made chocolates with my mom in the past over Christmas, but before this I had never attempted to make chocolates myself.

Unfortunately I did not have some of the nicer kitchen supplies that my mom has back home, such as a double boiler or a dipping spoon. I also had to sneak around a bit, as I didn’t actually want anyone to know that I was making any chocolates before I was done, Devin. It would be annoying if they were found half done and I had to explain what exactly I was making and why no, you can’t have any yet. Really ruins the surprise. Luckily the truffles are actually fairly quick. They’re really no more complex than Oreos and cream cheese frozen and dunked in liquid chocolate.

They came out tasting as expected; chocolate covered Oreos. I think they went over pretty well. Had I not hid them I’m sure they would be long gone by now.

I imagine after how well this chocolate making went I will probably try something similar again. Thanks to Amanda for finding the recipe I based mine off of. This is a fairly short update, but I have a few backed up updates from last week that didn’t go up. Last week was midterms, so I couldn’t find the time to post. I have some corn dogs and corned beef hash as well as some non-food related updates coming. One on organization and another on exercise. Hope your Valentine’s days went well. Mine was pretty satisfying, giant party that happened to find my apartment aside.