i have found the way to make perfect hardboiled eggs (or, in which buzzfeed improves my life)

In Egypt, breakfast almost always includes a hardboiled egg. Even the breakfast cart parked near our bus to Petra had a bowl of hardboiled eggs. And the eggs are always perfect. The shell slides right off, leaving a smooth, perfect white, and a bright yellow yolk. How do they do it?

Way back, I posted my method for making hardboiled eggs, which at the time, I thought was perfect. Alas, it was not. With some batches, every egg peels perfectly. Others, about half do. And in some batches, I'm lucky if two or three eggs peel well, and the rest are a mess.

My beginner's Arabic is nowhere near good enough to discuss cooking methods, and none of our Breakfast Guys had sufficient English, so I didn't ask. I just peeled and ate each egg, marvelling at the consistent perfection. I was so excited about the eggs that I peeled one for Allan every morning, too.

On the internet, you'll find many different egg-boiling recipes, each claiming to be The Best. I decided that when we got home, I would collect all the methods and conduct an experiment, using all different methods, writing down which eggs were made with which methods, and so on.

When I started googling, I found that Buzzfeed had done the work for me! This post -- I Tested Out Popular Tricks To Make Hard-Boiled Eggs Easier To Peel -- is exactly as advertised. Buzzfeed staff writer Mathew Jedeikin collected all the advice from the internet, made a whole bunch of eggs for his husband's breakfast, and reported back on the results. In typical Buzzfeed fashion, there are lots of pictures of the results and honking big titles -- with baking soda, with vinegar, with and without ice bath, starting from boiling, starting from cold water, and so on.

So thanks to Buzzfeed, I can now post the way to make Perfect Hardboiled Eggs. I made a dozen at a time, as I always do.

1. Begin with a low boil, not a full-on rolling boil.
2. Add vinegar -- about 15 mls (1 tablespoon) per 4 cups of water.
3. Use a slotted spoon to gently lower eggs into the water.
4. Boil for 14 minutes.
5. Remove eggs to ice bath.
6. When eggs have cooled down, they are ready to peel and eat, or to peel and store in the fridge.

This method solves three previous issues.

One, I had been lowering eggs into rapidly boiling water, causing the eggs to explode. The gentle boil fixes that.

Two, the vinegar dissolves enough of the calcium to loosen the shell's grip on the egg.

And three -- shared with my old method -- the ice bath shrinks the inner membrane for even easier peeling.

The vinegar and the ice bath might be redundant, but I'm willing to use both methods to arrive at perfection.

(I notice that many commenters on the Buzzfeed story are horrified. "Who the hell boils eggs for 14 minutes?" "How do you stand the vinegar?" and blahblahblah. I don't know what they're complaining about, but if you dislike vinegar or you feel strongly that 14 minutes is too long to boil an egg, perhaps these comments will be helpful to you.)