How to cook eggs: every timing

✅ The essentials

It all comes down to time and to gentle heat. With a timer and low heat, you get every cooking right every time, and none takes more than twelve minutes. The times below are for a medium egg (53 to 63 g) taken out of the fridge ten minutes before; for a large egg, add a minute.

The cooking times

• Soft-boiled: 3 minutes in boiling water. The white is barely set, the yolk is liquid.
• Medium-boiled: 6 minutes in boiling water, then 1 minute in cold water. The white is set, the yolk runs.
• Hard-boiled: 9 minutes in boiling water, then cold water. The yolk is cooked and stays nicely yellow. Past 10 minutes, the green ring appears.
• Poached: 3 minutes in simmering water, not boiling, with a dash of vinegar, the egg cracked into a bowl and poured in gently.
• Fried: 3 minutes on low heat in a pan with a knob of butter or a drizzle of oil, without touching it. For a white that is set on top, cover for thirty seconds at the end.
• Scrambled: 2 to 3 minutes on low heat with butter, stirring all the time. Take them off as soon as they are creamy, they finish cooking on the plate.
• Omelette: 4 to 5 minutes on medium heat, the time for the underside to set while the top is still runny, then folded.
• Baked in a ramekin: 10 to 12 minutes in the oven at 180 °C (350 °F), in a water bath, until the white is set and the yolk still runny.

🍳 The method for boiled eggs

1. Take the eggs out of the fridge ten minutes before, or run them under warm water: an ice-cold egg cracks in boiling water.
2. Bring a pot of water to the boil. Lower the eggs in with a spoon, without dropping them from high up.
3. Start the timer as soon as the water boils again: 3, 6 or 9 minutes depending on what you want.
4. Take them out and put them straight into cold water. The cold stops the cooking, and the shell comes off better.
5. Peel a medium-boiled egg gently, it is fragile. Salt a fried egg at the end, on the white only, salt stains the yolk.

⚖️ The quantities

Two eggs per adult and one per child for a light meal.

⏱️ How long it takes

Between three and twelve minutes depending on the cooking.

🩹 If it goes wrong

An overcooked hard-boiled egg, with the green ring, is perfectly good, just less pretty: put it in a salad or make devilled eggs. A medium-boiled egg that went hard, too bad, it is good too. Dry scrambled eggs, the heat was too high: add a spoon of cream or cream cheese, and turn it down next time.

🍽️ Make it tonight

Devilled eggs with hard-boiled eggs, or a medium-boiled egg on a Caesar salad.