One question I seem to get asked a lot is ‘how to peel hard boiled eggs’. You may have a similar problem. You know how the shell sticks to the white – and then there’s that unsightly greeny black ring round the yolk? Well, it’s all down to how the egg was cooked in the first place.

Here’s a surprise for you: very few cooks, including many chefs I have known, understand how to properly hard boil an egg! They tend to stick them in boiling water and leave them for around ten minutes and then let them cool in their shells. Bad plan. Follow me and have perfect salad eggs for ever more.

Put the eggs in a pan of salted, cold water, making sure there is at least two centimeters (1 inch) of water covering them. If they float, throw them out.

Bring the water to a boil over medium heat, take the pan off the stove and cover it. Leave the eggs in the water for 20 minutes. No longer.

Plunge the eggs into icy cold water and leave them for five minutes or so, until they have cooled completely. Then tap the blunt end of each egg to crack the shell and roll the egg backwards and forwards on a hard surface, under the flat of your hand, so that it cracks all over. Peel from the blunt end. The cracked pieces of shell will stick to the skin and come away in one piece.

Store the peeled eggs in chilled water in the fridge for up to three days. They will be perfect, with no unsightly rings round the yolks.

photo credit: RatRanch