How to Cook Hard-Boiled Eggs so They Peel Okay, so it's not about how to cook them -- it's about how old they are before you cook them. Fresh-out-of-the-chicken eggs peel horribly. Plunging them directly into cold cold water (icy water) seems to help some, but what really makes the difference is letting them sit in the fridge for a while before you cook them. I had experimented a lot, but had trouble keeping track of all the variables. Then one day a (chicken owning) friend revealed this to me. So I started trying to keep track of how recently I'd bought the eggs. I tried fresh eggs, I tried not-so-fresh eggs. I tried the cold water thing (but I should have tried doing the cold water thing on just half the batch, so I had a true control - hmm.) I started to conclude that it was really the age. So just this past month, I tried buying an extra dozen and letting it sit. And sit. And sit. I don't remember how long I waited. Two weeks maybe. At least a week. Kristin made them and didn't even bother with the cold water thing. They peeled beautifully. Don't worry about them going bad in the fridge (raw eggs don't really go rotten, as such -- they just dry out -- and that takes months unrefrigerated). Well, at least I've never pushed them so far that they actually went bad. A little advance planning (and willpower not to eat them sooner) is all that's needed. Have fun! PS: I haven't experimented with what makes eggs crack and leak as you cook them. After all, hard-boiled eggs certainly do go rotten, and a breached shell can't be a good thing. So if anybody knows what factor affects this, please tell me.

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