Shell game
Everything you need to know about eggs
By Gwen Schoen -- Bee Food Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Story appeared in Taste section, Page F1
Setting It Straight: A Taste story on Page F1 Wednesday misstated a technique for discerning whether an egg is hard-cooked or raw. According to the American Egg Board, if an egg spins easily, it is hard-cooked; if it wobbles, it is raw.
Whether you eat them, cook them, decorate them or hide them, eggs have long been part of our spring traditions.
Not that spring is much different than the rest of the year.
Elisa Maloberti, consumer information coordinator for the American Egg Board in Park Ridge, Ill., says the AEB estimates that the average American eats about 255 eggs a year, counting those that end up in commercial products such as baked goods and mixes.
"We eat enough eggs to keep 235 million chickens busy all year," she says.
A few years ago, egg consumption took a hit when it was pointed out that they are high in cholesterol. Now we know more. Eggs are one of the best sources of high-quality protein and essential vitamins and minerals. As long as you limit your consumption, they are good for you.
Besides the nutritional benefits, eggs are the building blocks of countless recipes. Without them, there would be no angel food cake, no crème brûlée, no quiche and no lemon meringue pie.
Imagine the staples of life (you know, brownies and chocolate chip cookies) if we had no eggs to bind the batter together and make dough rise.
Yes, we'd probably find a substitute, but life just wouldn't be the same.
Is it fresh?
Gently drop a raw egg in the shell into cold water. If it sinks, it is very fresh. If it stays suspended in the water, it is about two weeks old. If it floats, toss it out.
If a raw egg white has a cloudy look, it indicates freshness.
Storing eggs
When refrigerated, eggs will stay fresh about four or five weeks after they are packed in the carton, but consumers will have a difficult time figuring that date out. The best rule is to use them within about three weeks after purchase.
Leave them in their original carton and place them on the highest shelf of the refrigerator. The carton will prevent moisture loss and will keep them from absorbing odors and flavors from other foods. If they get too cold, the shells will crack.
Always store eggs with the large end up. The air pocket is at the large end. If you store eggs small end up, they will separate from the shell more quickly and won't stay fresh as long.
A cracked egg will spoil quickly. Once a raw egg has been broken, you should use it or freeze it within a day.
To freeze whole raw eggs, remove them from the shells, then lightly blend the white and yolk together and freeze them in airtight plastic containers. Be sure to mark the container with the quantity of eggs.
Separated yolks tend to get gummy when frozen. To prevent that, break them and lightly beat in either 1/8 teaspoon of salt or 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar or corn syrup for every 1/4 cup of yolks. Freeze them in an airtight container and be sure to label the package with the quantity of yolks and whether you added salt or sugar. When you use the thawed yolks in a recipe, adjust the salt or sugar according to how the yolks were frozen. You do not need to add sugar or salt to egg whites before freezing.
Frozen and defrosted egg whites can be used for meringues or baked recipes. Frozen and defrosted whole eggs or yolks can be used in baked recipes.
If you have extra hard-cooked eggs, you can freeze the yolks but not the whites. The whites of hard-cooked eggs will become tough and watery when frozen.
How eggs measure up
One cup of eggs equals:4 jumbo
4 extra-large
5 large
5 medium
6 small eggs
Unless a recipe says otherwise, use large eggs.
What's in a grade?
Eggs are graded by a system called candling. Today, candling is done electronically, but years ago it was done by holding eggs up to a candle so that the size of the yolks could be seen through the shells. The grading system is based on the appearance of the eggs, not the nutritional value.
USDA AA is top quality, USDA A is second best and USDA B is third best. Basically, the top grades have firm whites and high-standing yolks when broken on a flat surface. B grades have thinner whites and flatter yolks.
Separating yolks
Often when recipes call for separated egg whites, it's because the whites will be whipped to frothy mounds. If even the tiniest bit of egg yolk gets into the whites as you separate the eggs, it will be nearly impossible to whip them to the consistency you need for the recipe.
Work over a small bowl as you separate each white, then transfer it to your larger work bowl. That way, if you accidentally break a yolk you haven't ruined the whole batch.
According to the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine, yolks will be less likely to break when they are cold, so separate them as soon as you take them out of the refrigerator, then allow them to come to room temperature before using them in your recipe.
To separate yolks and whites, most people just give the egg a sharp rap on the side of the bowl, then bounce the yolks back and forth between the two pieces of shell while the white dribbles into the bowl.
Wrong!
Never separate the yolks this way, says Maloberti. If there is any bacteria on the shell, it will transfer to the raw egg. She recommends using an egg separator or breaking the egg into a small funnel. The white will run out of the funnel and the yolk will be trapped in the top.
Easy to hard-cook
An egg that is hard-cooked when it is a week to 10 days old will peel more easily. The reason is that as an egg ages, it begins to dry out, which causes it to shrink slightly and create an air pocket between the egg and the shell.
To hard-cook eggs, place them in a pan in a single layer. Cover the eggs with water by an inch. If you plan to dye the eggs, add a tablespoon of white vinegar to the water. The vinegar will dissolve any oil on the shell, which will help the dye to cling more evenly. Bring the water to a rapid boil. Cover the pan with a lid and remove it from the heat.
If you are cooking jumbo eggs, let them sit for 21 minutes; extra-large eggs, 18 minutes; large eggs, 15 minutes; medium eggs, 12 minutes.
Then plunge the eggs in cold water. Store them in the refrigerator and eat them within a week.
If you accidentally get hard-cooked and raw eggs mixed up, spin each egg on the kitchen counter. The eggs that wobble are cooked, the ones that spin smoothly are raw.
If the yolk of a hard-cooked egg has a gray or greenish tinge around it, it is safe to eat. The discoloration is caused by a chemical reaction during cooking between the sulfur in the white and the iron in the yolk. Or it could indicate that the egg was cooked too long. It's harmless.
Easter eggs
Make sure you hide Easter eggs where they will be found within two hours so that they can go back into the refrigerator. Hide them where they won't come in contact with fertilizer, insecticides or animal droppings.
Heavenly meringue
There are several important things to remember when beating egg whites. If even the smallest speck of egg yolk or grease gets into the egg whites, they will not whip. Make sure your beaters and bowl are absolutely grease-free and dry.
If you overwhip the egg whites, they will be dry and won't hold up as you mix them into other ingredients. Whip them until they hold soft peaks that fall over at the tips when you lift the whisk or beaters out of the bowl. If the recipe says beat to stiff peaks, the peaks will stand up firmly when the whisk is lifted out of the bowl. Egg whites at room temperature will whip fluffier than chilled egg whites.
If your recipe calls for folding beaten egg whites into a batter, add a small amount of beaten whites to the batter by gently lifting the batter. With a slow, rolling motion (rather than stirring), blend them in. This step is called lightening the batter. Once you have done this, fold in the remaining whites. This gradual blending will keep the batter light and fluffy.
Cook them gently
When raw eggs are added to hot mixtures, they will curdle if not added correctly. To prevent curdling, beat the eggs lightly, blending a small amount of the hot mixture as you beat. Then add the blended eggs to the pan of hot ingredients, stirring constantly.
The scary part
The latest figures indicate that one in every 20,000 commercial eggs might be contaminated with salmonella. That means every consumer might encounter a contaminated egg once every 84 years. Still, eating raw eggs is not recommended, so don't eat raw cookie dough, lick egg beaters coated with cake batter or use ice cream or eggnog recipes that call for raw eggs.
There are pasteurized eggs available if you want to use raw eggs in uncooked recipes. These eggs have been subjected to a temperature-controlled water bath that kills bacteria. Or you can use liquid eggs such as Egg Beaters.
What color is your egg?
The color of the shell is determined by the breed of the chicken. Brown eggs are produced by hens with red feathers and red earlobes, such as Rhode Island Red and New Hampshire Red hens. White-shelled eggs are produced by white hens with white earlobes such as Leghorns. Egg flavors do not vary based on the color of the shell.
Brown eggs are more expensive because hens that lay brown eggs usually are larger and require more food, so production costs are higher.
Yolk colors are determined by the hen's diet.
How does it taste?
Eggshells are very porous and will absorb flavors and odors if stored near other foods. If you store eggs in a tightly sealed container with an onion, an apple or a vanilla bean, for example, the egg will have an onion, apple or vanilla flavor.
Most of the flavor is in the yolk and is only slightly determined by what the chicken eats.
Free-range eggs
Free-range eggs are produced by hens that have access to the outdoors. The AEB says that few commercial eggs come from hens that are actually raised outdoors. Some egg farms are indoor floor operations, and these are sometimes described as free-range. The nutrient content of free-range eggs is the same as other eggs.
Organic eggs
Hens fed organic feed - without pesticides, fungicides, herbicides or commercial fertilizers - lay organic eggs. The nutritional breakdown is the same as hens fed other types of food.
According to the AEB, commercial hens are not fed hormones, whether they eat organic feed or not.
Sources: American Egg Board,
www.aeb.org; "Eggs" by Michael Roux (Wiley Hardcover, $24.95, 304 pages); "The Good Egg; More Than 200 Fresh Approaches From Breakfast to Dessert" by Marie Simmons (Houghton Mifflin, $15, 446 pages).
