04/03/2015

Cracking the Egg

16:40 minutes

We’ve all been there: You boil some eggs, timing it down to the minute to get that perfect yolk, and then shock them in cold water. Now for the fun part: peeling. Often it’s a total mess, with tiny bits of shell sticking to meaty bits of white, and in the end you have a pockmarked, albeit shell-less, mess in your hands.

Dear listeners, there is a better way. The cooking geek to guide us is Jeff Potter, a software engineer by day, kitchen science ninja by night, who has cooked his way through dozens of eggs—including those of the emu and ostrich variety—to develop the perfect recipe for easy-to-peel hard-boiled eggs. And here’s the thing: It doesn’t even involve boiling. All of Potter’s egg science secrets will be revealed in this eggstravagant episode of Food Failures.

For Potter’s step-by-step method to hard-cooked eggs, click here. And for an egg dyeing activity, click here.

Segment Guests

Jeff Potter

Jeff Potter is the author of Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food — Second Edition (O’Reilly, 2015) and a software engineer in New York, New York.

Meet the Producer

About Christopher Intagliata

Christopher Intagliata was Science Friday’s senior producer. He once served as a prop in an optical illusion and speaks passable Ira Flatowese.

Explore More

The 1-2-3s of Hard-Cooked Eggs

Cooking geek Jeff Potter cracks the code on easy-to-peel, hard-cooked eggs.

Read More