I eat eggs for breakfast pretty much every morning. Eggs and toast. It’s what I do. I like them every way imaginable. But, when I was a kid I was a little pickier. Whenever my mom would make scrambled eggs I imagined all the shapes to be teeny tiny animals. How could my Mom possibly expect me to eat a teensy weensy lamb or puppy? I was horrified and it took me a little while to get over it. Although, I didn’t have any trouble eating actual animals (I’m talking chicken and ground beef here, not puppies and lambs), but I just couldn’t get down those mini make believe ones. (In my defence, they were whole animals that were still alive, in my little active imagination.)
Over the course of time I have gotten over my fears and have come to see eggs for their full potential, picking up some useful tips along the way. I thought I would share some with you, incase you have any egg fears of your own that you are needing to get over. :)
- To more easily remove the shell when boiling eggs add a good amount of salt to the water. The salt helps the egg whites to firm up faster and therefore stay more separate from the shell. (Also, if you happen to crack an egg as you put it in, this will help the white to seal up the crack faster)
- Over-cooking a hard-boiled egg results in a greyish green ring around the outside of the yolk. To avoid this when you are wanting your eggs to look pretty, chill the egg in cold water immediately after cooking. (The grey ring is not bad to eat, it is just unappetizing to look at)
- If you have some boiled eggs in the fridge and you can’t remember which ones are cooked and which ones aren’t, just give them a good spin. A hard boiled egg will spin like crazy and a raw egg will only spin a couple of times.
- When baking, it is best to use large eggs. And, a good way to judge whether your eggs should be used straight out of the fridge or should be at room temperature is based on the butter. If the butter in the recipe is supposed to be cold then the eggs can be too, but if the butter is supposed to be room temperature or warmer then the eggs should be room temperature as well.
- When a recipe calls for eggs to be whipped they should be at room temperature for maximum volume.
- To warm eggs quickly to room temperature, place the eggs (shell on, of course) in a small bowl and cover them with steaming hot tap water. Let them sit for a couple of minutes until no longer cold to the touch.
- Not sure how old the eggs are in your fridge? An easy way to tell if an egg has gone bad is to drop it gently into a cup of water. If it floats, throw it in the trash.
- The last and most important one: Scrambled eggs are not living, breathing miniature animals.
Anyone else have any awesome tips about eggs they would like to add?
And, the age old question that must be asked. What do you think came first: the chicken or the egg? :)
