This is inspired by a recent Cool Tools review of an egg timer. We have chickens and eat a fair amount of eggs. I love Eggs Benedict. Hard boiling a fresh egg is an iffy thing. Sometimes, due to the freshness, the shell just won’t peel off the egg. Steaming eggs is better, but still sort of hit or miss. Poaching eggs for my Eggs Benedict was a real pain and the clean up from that more than I liked.

One day, I ran across mention of the Dash Rapid Egg Cooker and always a sucker for gadgets I took a look at it. For some reason (clearance, maybe?) the green version was under $20. I bought it, and cynic that I am, figured here’s another kitchen gadget that will eventually go to Goodwill. The thing works and works well. It seems to be timed by the weight of the of water you put into it. There is a little measuring cup included, graduated for the type of eggs you are cooking, like hard, medium and soft boiled. You put in the water, set in the tray, put in the eggs, turn it on and when the alarm (it’s really loud) goes off, the eggs are ready to be removed.

Hard boiled eggs have to have the end pierced and the measuring cup has a piercer in the bottom. Forget that step and I’ll bet you have a mess. Following the directions for the hard boiled eggs and moving them to cold water immediately they peeled perfectly. Poached eggs come out as a sort of strange half moon shape , but they are cooked perfectly. I add a little more water than the measuring cup shows, I don’t want my yolks too runny.

Timing of egg cooking has ceased to be an issue. The alarm won’t let you ignore the eggs. The process is pretty quick, I made 2 dozen hard boiled eggs for deviled eggs and it went quite fast – I didn’t keep track of the time, just dinked around on the computer while the eggs cooked. Every one cooked and peeled perfectly.

The clean up from any of the eggs I’ve cooked is next to nothing. Seriously, there has been no real mess to clean up. No water to dump out after hard boiling, just next to nothing to clean up. The “footprint” on the counter is small, it’s about 6 inches in diameter. There are a number of small parts, all stack together when not in use and the lid closes over them and keeps them corralled together.

Losing the measuring cup would be a disaster, but I see in the Amazon questions answered the seller will send a new one for free. This gadget is another keeper; it sits next to the rice cooker which has earned a permanent spot on the counter. I haven’t tried it for omelettes and probably won’t. I’m just after the basic egg cooking and this satisfies that perfectly.

-- Norm Bolser 06/12/18