From Erik's Kitchen: 10 Egg Tips

It's said that the 100 folds in a chef's toque (read: hat) are all different ways the chef has learned to cook and/or prepare an egg.  And yet, for many people I know, cooking a decent egg is really hard to do.

So, in an attempt to type up something quickly an attempt to help people prepare better eggs, I'm providing ten tips that I've found have greatly increased my ability to make a decent egg.

1) Make sure the pan is at the right temperature.

This goes without saying, you don't want the eggs to burn the moment they hit the pan, but you also don't want to slowly heat them up while the pan heats.  A great tip I heard (and now use) is that you simply put a frozen pat of butter into the pan (the real stuff, not margarine) and watch it.  When the boiling stops, it means the water has all cooked out, and that is the perfect time to add your eggs into the pan.

2) Don't let them finish in the pan.

Here's a helpful hint for anybody who served dry food: food continues to cook after you take it out of the pan/oven/whatever.  The outer-most layer of the food might start to cool, but inside, the center is still heating up from residual heat.  This also applies to eggs.

So, when the eggs are almost done, remove them from the pan and let them sit for a minute to finish cooking on the plate.  They'll be soft and delicious, and not taste like old rubber.

3) Season the eggs before they go in the pan (if possible).

Obviously, this is harder to do if your eggs are simply being cracked open and dropped in something like a pan or boiling water (for frying or poaching, respectively).  But if you're scrambling them, add some salt and pepper to the eggs while they're still in the bowl.  For that matter...

4) Don't put eggs directly into the cooking container.

Suppose you're hoping to make a sunny-side up egg.  You crack it against the edge of the counter (more on this in a moment) and pull it apart just to have the shell crumble in your hand and chunks of it land mixed in with the egg.  Or, the yolk catches the edge of the egg or lands hard enough to rupture.  Bleh.

Simplest thing to do is break the eggs into a small bowl (I use a ramekin) first and then put them into whatever your cooking utensil is, to make sure that they're completely shell-free and without a broken yolk before cooking.  Preparing multiple eggs?  Use multiple bowls or simply add the eggs one at a time.  Speaking of opening eggs...

5) Don't crack eggs on the edge of things.

Okay, if I had time, I'd draw a graphic here, but imagine you have two eggs.  You slice into one with a butter knife, and the other you smack with a plate.  Both eggs will break and make a terrible mess, but if you were able to look carefully you'd see that they broke differently.

The one hit with the knife will have the shell pushed down into the egg as friction and pressure pushes straight down on a narrow area.  This means that if there was anything hazardous on the shell of the egg, it's now in the liquid part of the egg, because there's tiny pieces of egg shell in it.

The flat one, though, will still be a total mess, but you'll find more shell still stuck to the inner "membrane" that you can peel off if you hard boil an egg sometimes and remove the shell just to find some thin layer of "stuff" still on your egg.

So what, you might ask?

Well, turn it around.  Breaking an egg against a sharp counter edge, the edge of a bowl, or even tapping it on a knife or the pan can cause those tiny fragments from the first example, because it's focused pressure on a narrow area.  If you tap it on a plate, a counter top, or any other flat surface (I recommend against using the hot pan surface itself), more shell sticks to the membrane, and it's easier to pull it apart without problem.  Plus, I've found I have fewer chances to break the yolk if I have better control over where the sharp bits of the shell are.

6) "Free Range" chickens aren't always better.

Technically, this counts as "free range."

"Free Range" simply means the the chicken has "access" to an open area instead of living forever in a cage.  It doesn't mean they necessarily get to run around, get wide open space, or get access to fresh air.  It's the difference between leaving your dog in the back yard and leaving them in a kennel in your garage but leaving the kennel door open.  If you want better eggs, look for "pastured" on the label.

"Pastured" eggs can also have up to four times the Vitamin D.  That's pretty great.

7) "Vegetarian" eggs aren't always better.

I mean, sure, you're not being given eggs from chicken that were fed bacon, chicken pieces, fish, or whatever roadkill the farmer could toss in a blender, but you know those delicious "from the farm" eggs you get out in the country?  Odds are those chickens ate some bugs for protein.

8) Egg color doesn't mean anything.

Seriously, all it means is that one chicken was a different color from another chicken, so don't pay more money for one color than another.

9) Separate your yolks and whites seperately.

This seems redundant, but it makes sense.  If you need to separate an egg so you have a white and a yolk (maybe you're making meringue), odds are you need several eggs split.  Use three bowls: one to separate the egg yolk from the white into, one to store the whites in, one to store the yolks in.  I can't tell you how many times I've ruined a batch of whites because I'd get four eggs in and suddenly a bit of yolk lands in from the fifth egg.

And, as anybody who does meringue knows, if any yolk gets into your whites, they're never going to foam up.  So use the extra bowl and be safe.

Also, don't get fancy with the egg edges, I just wash my hands first and then break an egg right into my hand, let the white slide between my fingers while I cup the yolk.

10)  Mulch your eggshells, but crumble them up first.

Egg shells make for amazing mulch, but they're built to be resistant to breaking down.  Help the process by tossing them in a coffee grinder, food processor, or simply breaking them up into tiny pieces with your hands if you want to, but they'll compost a lot faster the smaller the pieces are.