What is the most difficult dish a chef can produce?

Two dishes are commonly known as the most difficult tests for a world class chef:

That's right; the stuff you’ve served at home countless times.

Why soup and eggs? They are so simple, and that's exactly why they are so difficult.

There is no way to cover up a mistake or a mis-step. There is no where to run and no other ingredients to hide behind. There is precisely one way to do it correctly and millions of ways to mess it up irreversibly.

You may think “I cook that all the time,” but really most people don't really make these things from scratch (canned soup doesn't count as “cooking”), and most people do a horrible job of making eggs at home.

If your boiled eggs look like this:

you're doing it wrong…

Properly boiled eggs look like these:

(Shown top to bottom: hard boiled, soft boiled, and runny-soft boiled)

That little gray/green ring around the yolk means it's over-cooked and now you’ve dried out the yolk to the consistency of chalk.

Making perfectly cooked eggs is hard… most people just don't know what properly cooked eggs look or taste like so they don't realize when they do it wrong.

Thanks for reading...