A while back, I had posted that the one food item I had never figured out was the (perfect) soft-boiled egg.. I'd run into many problems of various kinds every time I attempted them in the past.. But now, I finally figured it out! The problem was that I was focusing on the wrong variable.. The perfect soft-boiled egg is not primarily about how long to cook the egg, it's about the right temperature for the water. You need to get the water to the temperature where the whites will harden, but the yolk will not fully cook.. I'm not sure what that temperature is, but I believe it's somewhere between 80 and 90C. I have a handy digital meat thermometer which can help in measuring the water temp (which was very inexpensive). Get the water to around the right temp, then carefully place the eggs in the water, and then give it "adequate time" to cook (I cooked them for about 8 minutes, which worked fine).

Now, to figure out the right temperature exactly.

update - found this page which is interesting:
http://www.edinformatics.com/math_science/science_of_cooking/cooking_temperatures.htm

(and also yes, I meant between 80 and 90C, though it seems doesn't even need to be that high, and can probably be around 63 or 65C - though that's questionable from a safety perspective).