By Rose Madeline Mula

This morning, starting on yet another health kick, I figured I'd forego my usual breakfast of a humongous blueberry muffin dripping with butter or an automobile-tire-sized bagel slathered with  cream cheese or a stack of pancakes swimming in syrup.  Feeling noble, I decided to have a much less lethal boiled egg on whole wheat toast.   But instead of simply boiling some water and tossing in an egg for three minutes, as I normally would have done, for some reason, I consulted Chef Google.  Big mistake.

The first surprise was the number of websites devoted to boiling an egg.  A staggering list. The first site I opened started with the intimidating statement, "One bad hard-boiled egg can ruin you for life."  Wow!  Who knew?!  I fled that website fast and browsed a few others at random.  Talk about too much information!

First, you can't grab just any pan from your cabinet.  You must consider how efficiently each one conducts heat.  Detailed test instructions followed. The heat source is also important.  Electricity?  Gas?  How much water do you put in the pan — just enough to cover the eggs or an extra inch?  Do you put the eggs into cold water, or wait until it boils?  Do you cover the pan or not?  So many questions and few definitive answers.  Much depends on how you like your eggs — creamy and mellow, runny soft-boiled, gooey soft-boiled, or hard-boiled.  And if the last choice, how to avoid a green ring around the yolk or a tough, gummy white.

Timing, of course, is critical.  A few seconds more or less on the heat source could be disastrous.  (Don’t forget, "One bad hard-boiled egg can ruin you for life."  I assume the same is true for a bad soft-boiled egg.) One website suggests boiling a dozen eggs and taking each out at different times to determine which time produces an egg most appealing to you.  It is, of course, important to have a notebook at hand to record the results.  Otherwise, the whole exercise will be for naught; and you'll have to start again with another dozen eggs.

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