Jacques Pépin’s Spinning Technique For Hard-Boiled Eggs

When you boil an egg, there are no visual clues on how cooked the egg is. However, per chef and restaurateur Jacques Pépin, all you have to do to find out is give the egg a spin.

Per Food & Wine, Pépin suggests spinning the boiled egg on your countertop. As he puts it, if “the egg is totally cooked, it will stand up like a top. A raw egg doesn’t turn.”

As you spin a raw egg, its liquid white and heavy yolk slosh around the shell and throw it off balance, but a fully cooked egg’s stable, non-liquid structure lets it spin steadily.

However, you can’t tell soft and hard-boiled eggs apart based on whether they spin wobbly or quickly and steadily. The hack only helps determine if the egg is cooked through.