The Dash Rapid Egg Cooker. / Photo above courtesy of the manufacturer. Photo on front from iStock.
I MAY NOT BE enamored of every electric cooking appliance, but I have a few favorites. Top on my list this year is the Dash Rapid Egg Cooker. For $20 or less, this little machine is my gadget of the moment. And it’s a good moment for an egg cooker.
Hard-cooked eggs are in. What was once my mom’s stodgy go-to snack food is now the darling of the high- protein crowd, the humble centerpiece of high-protein bowls, breakfast sandwiches and healthy snack packs. My mom was ahead of the trend, pushing hard-cooked eggs as a snack food, and egg-salad sandwiches, long before the avocado-and-egg sandwich got trendy.
My mom may have been on track with the nutritional value of the hard-cooked egg, but she had an execution issue. The cooking method she relied on was pretty standard; place the eggs in a pot of cold water, wait for the water to come to a boil, then reduce the heat and let the eggs simmer for 15 minutes. The resulting eggs had yolks tinged with an unattractive olive green around the rim, a clear indication of overcooking. Over time, I came up with a method where you brought the water to a simmer, covered the pot and turned off the heat. After 14 minutes, you transferred the eggs to an ice-water bath. And if you were vigilant, you had a good hard-cooked egg. Problem was, like my mother, I am easily distracted. Often, waiting for the water to come to just the right simmer point, I found myself involved in something else and the my eggs got overcooked.
Enter the electric egg cooker. I was skeptical, but at its price point, about $20, it was worth a try. You prick the wide end of the eggs, place each one small-end-down in the cooker, add water as directed, cover and push the “on” button. When the eggs are ready, an alarm, way too loud to ignore, goes off. After a quick soak in an ice-water bath, you have six perfect hard-cooked eggs. Not only that but they are so easy to peel.
Now I can make as many perfect eggs as I need for deviled eggs, egg sandwiches, sliced eggs and even my mom’s egg salad. I love that little egg cooker.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” come up with dinner (and other) ideas every Monday on MyLittleBird.com.
Stephanie,
Have you ever tried a Vitamix ? A friend used it over New Year’s weekend. I had to laugh because the instructions called it a “high-performance” blender.