Cooking For Engineers

[Taamar]

Dunno if it's a secret or not, but the fresher the eggs are the harder they are to peel. Put your eggs into a pan of cold salted water and set it on the heat. When it boils, cover the pot and turn the heat off. When the eggs are cool enough to handle put them in cold water until you are ready to peel.

Meanwhile, mix your mayo/onion/spices (whatever) so that you dont shred your eggs trying to mix. Once you're ready, peel the eggs and push them through a mesh cake-rack (mine has a 1/2 inch grid). toss and enjoy

[GaryProtein]

[Taamar]

Try that on an egg right out of the chicken and I guarantee you'll have a messy egg. Since this is an engineer site I'll even tell you why:

There is an air pocket in eggs... the older the egg the larger the pocket. Over time the enlarging pocket loosens the membrane from the shell, making it easier to peel. Science is a beautiful thing!

[GaryProtein]

Taamar: I've made hard boiled eggs this way for years. It always works for me. What part of the method did you disagree with? We each cook the eggs slowly. It seems the main difference is that you let the eggs cool slowly, and I chill them rapidly and peel them after they are cold, under running water. Peeling under running water significantly lowers the surface tension connecting the shell and the whites allowing the eggs to almost fall out of the shell. Is it that you like to use older eggs? I never noticed the age of the eggs to make a difference and eggs don't stay around our house long, because we eat lots of them.

ps: In my previous post I meant to reply quoting Curtis, asking what the secrets were. Sorry.

[Taamar]

My only disagreement is with your assertion that age doesn't matter. Your method works fine, I've done it that way when I can pay attention to timing, but as a caterer I like to use the self timing 'bring to boil and turn it off' method. No real reason not to use whatever method fits in with your style, so long as you start the eggs in cold water.

With fresher eggs the membrane is tightly attached to both shell and egg, running water doesn't get between them at all (I also live in a drought state..... the idea of wasting that much water makes me cringe). Most eggs you get at the supermarket are past this point (at least a week out of the ckicken) but if you live near an egg farm you might get a few that are newer. They are a pain to peel.


Hey, have you seen the 'egg peeler' gadget? http://www.rkdm.com/eggstractor/index.htm

[GaryProtein]

Taamar: Since I do not buy eggs from a chicken farm, I confess to not knowing how old eggs are when I bring them home from the store. I have gotten organic eggs at Whole Foods, and even they peel fine. How old could organic eggs at an organic market be? There definitely are regional differences in eggs from different chicken flocks. The shells on the brown organic eggs I sometimes get are stronger, harder to crack shells than the non-organic white shelled eggs, but the eggs always peeled out the same. (I don't really have a preference for organic over non-organic eggs.) Maybe your local chickens have more hemidesmosomes holding the shell to the albumin than chickens near me. Do you let your eggs "age" like wine for a few days before using them hard boiled?

[Crystal]

I don't know how it would work, but my boyfriend argues that a squirt of vinegar in the pot will prevent the eggs from cracking. I've never had problems with my eggs cracking and he always makes me do it by his method. It just might be an old trick that he got from his grandmother, but maybe you guys would be able to explain how it could or couldn't work?

[GaryProtein]

[Crystal]

[Michael Chu]

[GaryProtein]

[Crystal]

[GaryProtein]

[Michael Chu]

[youngcook]