Soft-boiled eggs with toast soldiers: the minutes that decide the yolk
The simplest breakfast in the world, easy to ruin by a single minute: a room-temperature egg, boiling water, a timer and an egg cup. Five minutes gives a yolk runny as sauce, six a creamy one, seven a yolk barely set. With buttered toast cut into strips for dipping, a pinch of salt and chives. No peeling: the top comes off with a teaspoon.
Your own work in that: 10 min.
- Eggs in boiling water 6 min
- Toast 4 min
Step by step
0 / 4 doneTake the eggs out of the fridge
Take the eggs out 15 minutes ahead (or sit them 5 minutes in a bowl of warm water). A cold egg dropped into boiling water cracks more often, and the times below are for a room-temperature egg. Bring water to the boil in a small pot, enough to cover the eggs.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 1 pinch salt · 2 tbsp chives
TipAn egg straight from the fridge needs 30–45 seconds longer. Large eggs: add 30 seconds; small: subtract 30.
Boil for 5 to 7 minutes
Turn the water down to a gentle boil. Lower the eggs in with a spoon, one after another, and start the timer at once. 5 minutes: white set, yolk fully liquid, for dipping. 6 minutes: yolk thick and creamy, the classic soft-boiled egg. 7 minutes: yolk barely set at the edges, liquid in the centre. Past 8 minutes it is a hard-boiled egg with a soft middle. While the eggs cook, toast the bread in a toaster or a dry frying pan.
Five: runny, six: creamy, seven: barely set
Stop the cooking
Lift the eggs out with a slotted spoon and put them in a bowl of cold water for 30 seconds: this stops the cooking inside while the egg stays warm. No longer, or it cools down. Meanwhile butter the hot toast and cut it into finger-wide strips.
Ingredients: 4 pcs white or sandwich bread · 30 g butter
TipWithout the cold water the yolk goes on cooking for a while in the hot shell, and a six-minute egg edges towards a seven-minute one.
Half a minute in cold water, no longer
Take the top off and eat
Stand the egg in an egg cup, wide end down. Tap around the shell with a teaspoon 1 cm from the top and lift the cap off. Salt, sprinkle with chives and dip the toast strips into the yolk. No egg cup: stand the egg in a small glass, or on a little heap of salt on the plate.
Tap around, lift the cap, dip
Before you start
The eggs crack in the pot
The usual culprits are a cold egg or too hard a boil. What helps: a room-temperature egg, a gentle boil and a spoon instead of dropping. A teaspoon of vinegar in the water makes white leaking from a cracked shell set faster instead of streaming out.
On a sandwich
Cool a 7-minute egg in cold water for 2 minutes, peel and halve onto a slice of buttered bread with chives: the yolk runs over the bread.
More eggs at once
Up to 6 eggs in the pot, the times don't change, as long as the water returns to the boil within half a minute. For more, use a bigger pot, not a longer time.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
