What do pavlovas, french martinis, homemade pasta, cream puffs, quiches, marshmallows, omelettes and whisky sours all have in common?
They exist solely thanks to this little guy:
oooof little babette
Yes, eggs are so many different things at once. They mean many things to many people.
Some like them scrambled. Others prefer ’em poached. But if you’re of the hard-boiled persuasion, you’d be all too familiar with their fatal flaw: how dang difficult they are to peel.
There’s no greater irritant than boiling your goog to perfection, only to spend the next 5 minutes of your life picking away at the shell (and damaging that precious white skin!) while a deep rage simmers inside of you.
The key to understanding why boiled eggs are so stubborn is to assess their chemistry. Like Criminal Minds, but for chicken period.
When you boil an egg, it gets hot. This heat coagulates the proteins (that’s a fancy way saying it turns the liquid to solid) which, in turn, makes the membrane stick to the shell.
It’s good, cause it means your egg will be nice and firm. It’s bad because it means it’ll be hard to peel.
The other factor is an eggs’ pH level. The fresher the egg, the lower the pH level. The lower the pH level, the stickier the egg whites will be and the harder they’ll be to undress without pock marks. If you’re planning on boiling your eggs, use the ones you’ve had in your fridge longest for the best results.
Got it? Now, to the peeling bit.
STEP 1: After boiling your babies, throw them into a bowl of iced water.STEP 2: Fill a seperate bowl with room temperature water.STEP 3: Once the eggs are sufficiently iced, transfer them into the room temp bowl.STEP 4: While submerged, knock them against the edge of the bowl to crack the shell. Once cracked (say crack again, crack) the water will help to seperate the membrane from the shell.STEP 5: Peel all your eggs under water and it’ll soften the blow and produce beautifully shiny, blemish free ovum.STEP 6: Gosh them down and be merry.
life is good
Photo: Airplane.
