Tuesday's Tip: A-peeling Eggs

We discovered long ago that R loves eggs.  I can recall when R was given the green light to eat both the yolk and white by our pediatrian (at the time, it was at 12 months, but things change so rapidly, I wonder if the advice is different today), and making his first scrambled eggs.  He inhaled them, and despite his frantic signing of “more, more, more,” I stopped after one egg as to avoid any possible allergic reaction.

Soon though, we went from 1 egg at a sitting with R to 2 and then 3, all while he was under the age of two.  We branched out from scrambled eggs too, discovering his love for hard-boiled, fried, deviled and egg salad.

Since hard-boiled eggs are beautifully easy to transport, I’ve made more hard-boiled eggs in my years of parenting R than the nearly 30 preceding years.  I have to admit, I didn’t have much luck peeling my hard boiled eggs during those initial months.  Instead of smooth, perfectly oval objects, I would undoubtedly end of with mangled messes that looked more like this:


Of course R wasn’t complaining, but when it came down to an even when SPH and I wanted to bring Deviled Eggs, we knew we had to figure out a better way to easily and consistently peel eggs.  Not being one for extra kitchen gadgets (more on that next week), I eschewed any idea of buying some of the contraptions sold to peel eggs.  Instead, I sought out the advice of others.  

Here’s what I discovered:

**First, the older the egg, the easier they are to peel.  Lesson?  Use your old eggs for hard boiling.

**Second, eggs are easier to peel if you begin at the larger end.  This is where the air pocket is, so removing the egg from the shell and membrane will be easier if you start here.

**Third, if you immediately drain the warm water from boiling the eggs, and replace it with cold water, with a teaspoon of baking soda, this does something to change the pH balance of the water and the shell comes off more easily.

Follow these easy 1-2-3 steps and you will have beautiful hard boiled eggs:


Much better, eh?
SPC

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