It'd just be my luck a rogue chicken would escape...
Posted on 03/28/2013 4:05:31 PM PDT by Daffynition
In this season of beitzahs and PAAS dye kits, it may be time for a friendly reminder about hard-boiled eggs: You’re not actually supposed to boil them. Hard-boiled eggs may seem too basic to warrant a PSA, but misinformation abounds. Just the other day, a bright, culinarily astute friend casually mentioned his egg-boiling technique, which he described as “traditional,” and which he seemed to think was socially condoned: Bring a pot of water to a low boil, add your eggs, and cook them for 10 minutes over medium heat.
Granted, his mistake is understandable—the very name “hard-boiled eggs” cruelly and ironically perpetuates the myth that the thing they describe should be boiled. But following my friend’s method yields unevenly cooked eggs: The whites, battered by the incessant kinetic energy of the water molecules, become tough and rubbery. The yolks, meanwhile, buffered by albumin, remain half raw. (Of course, you could boil the eggs longer than 10 minutes to get fully cooked yolks, but by that point your whites would have the texture of a foam yoga mat.) Eggs cooked this way cannot rightfully be called hard-boiled—they are half-hard, half-soft chimeras.
Furthermore, cooking eggs in boiling water disturbs whatever domestic tranquility you have carefully cultivated in your kitchen. Boiling eggs will rattle disquietingly in the pot, jarring your nerves (which may already be tattered either by Easter Bunny-crazed children or by not having been able to eat bread for several days). You might as well put on Steve Reich’s Drumming. In addition to being an aural nightmare, clattering eggs are liable to crack, thereby defeating the purpose of cooking them in the shell in the first place, and ruining them as a clean slate for dying or charring.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
It'd just be my luck a rogue chicken would escape...
Cool post.
Well, an old rock knocker like you, probably likes scrambled. Good Easter, to ya
A few of those around these days. Amazing times, Daffynition.
A few of those around these days. Amazing times, Daffynition.
Is it pedicure or pedigree? Not much on subtle.
You can never go wrong with plastic.
They don’t make very good egg salad, tho’.
White vinegar, a teaspoon.
Yes - just a small splash.
However, this week I will try your method of separating the membrane.
Thanks!
It does. As the eggs age, moisture evaporates from their interiors. The resulting slight shrinkage of the white pulls it away from the membrane. When you boil the eggs, water then enters the narrow gap between the white and membrane and acts as lubrication to make the membrane separate easily from the white.
When I was a kid growing up on a chicken ranch, my stepfather would bring home a couple of flats of eggs a couple of weeks before Easter so they would have time to age properly and thus become easy to peel after cooking.
What about the hens that lay green or blue eggs? (Araucuna or something like that.)
Simple and perfect every time.
The only change I make is that after peeling I slice them length wise and salt.
Yum!
I don’t know, probably brown. All of my hens laid colored eggs— there’s even a breed that lays dark brown eggs, they look like chocolate!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.