We teach residents how to boil an egg...
Jeremy Paxman wrote in his book "On Royalty" that Prince Charles is wont to order seven boiled eggs at a time so that he can get one that is just right. This was firmly denied by his staff. Had it been true, it would be quite understandable. A perfectly boiled egg is a sublime dish.
The Prince is reported to employ five chefs. A case, perhaps, of too many cooks? Likely they are culinary artists and shun the scientific approach essential to producing a perfect egg. The trick is to get the white completely cooked with the yolk just cooking but still runny. Here's the recipe. You require an egg cold from the refrigerator, a small saucepan with lid, and most essentially, a timer accurate to seconds. Place your egg in a saucepan. Cover it with water no more than hand-hot. Bring to the boil while you are cutting bread to toast. As the water is just about to boil properly, turn off the heat, cover the pan, and start your timer. You will have exactly three and a half minutes to toast and butter your bread and get the eggcup and spoon laid out. Remove the egg immediately this time is up, and serve at once. Perfect.
It's all about thermal gradients. Your egg is chilled to start with, the temperature of the water outside it is hot, to make the gradient as steep as possible without cracking the egg shell. If the egg is instead placed in cold water and brought to the boil, the process takes longer and the egg is more likely to reach an even heat throughout - which means the yolk will probably be cooked as hard as the white. If you put boiling water on a cold egg, it is likely to crack. Hence you start with hand-hot water. When the water has reached boiling point with the egg in it, you do not want your egg to bounce about and crack open. So you remove the heat source and cover the pan to keep the water just below boiling for the rest of the cooking time. Lastly, when you remove the egg from the pan it will still be slowly cooking, so you must serve it immediately. No egg-cosy, please!
Opinion is divided on which end to open it for eating. The Small-Endians hold the advantage, unless you want to dip toast soldiers in the yolk. Palace sources are silent on this point. What is clear is this: if you had to choose between eating lobster thermidor for the rest of your life, and no eggs, or eggs and no lobster thermidor, why then, perfect eggs and hot buttered toast have it every time.
Small Endian