Steamed Eggs
I love being able to buy ultra-fresh eggs at my local farmers market. The bright yellow-orange yolks, loaded with vitamin A and omega 3 fatty acids, give a lovely golden color to yeast breads, pancakes, and even homemade ice cream. The sturdy whites whip up light and fluffy in meringues. And scrambled eggs never looked so pretty or tasted so good.
My only frustration with fresh eggs is that I've always found them difficult to peel when boiled. I like to snack on hard-boiled eggs or add them to a chef salad. And I love a great egg salad sandwich. I gave up grocery store eggs years ago, but they sure were easy to peel. I've tried all the tricks when boiling my farm fresh eggs, but still ended up with a lot of the white stuck in the shell when I tried to peel them. If I wanted boiled eggs, I resorted to holding back a dozen in the refrigerator for a couple weeks so they wouldn't be quite so fresh and would peel more easily, but that takes advance planning.
I was sharing my frustration with my daughter one day and she said she steams her eggs instead of boiling them and the peel slips right off. How had I not heard about this???
I decided to give it a try last weekend when I boiled my Easter eggs. I wanted to cook a dozen and I don't have a large steamer so I improvised by placing a cake rack in a large pan. I added water so it came just under the rack, set my eggs on the rack, covered to pan and brought the water to a boil, then lowered it to a simmer. Christine said 12 minutes was the timing for hard-cooked yolks so that's what I did.
After steaming, I ran the eggs under cold water out of habit, though she said that's not even necessary. Now for the test....
...Hallelujah! The peel came off in big pieces with no white clinging to it. No pockmarked eggs! And the yolks?
Perfectly cooked with no gray ring around the edge.
I'm sold on this method. Can't imagine why I would ever go back to boiling. Thanks for the tip, Christine:)
My only frustration with fresh eggs is that I've always found them difficult to peel when boiled. I like to snack on hard-boiled eggs or add them to a chef salad. And I love a great egg salad sandwich. I gave up grocery store eggs years ago, but they sure were easy to peel. I've tried all the tricks when boiling my farm fresh eggs, but still ended up with a lot of the white stuck in the shell when I tried to peel them. If I wanted boiled eggs, I resorted to holding back a dozen in the refrigerator for a couple weeks so they wouldn't be quite so fresh and would peel more easily, but that takes advance planning.
I was sharing my frustration with my daughter one day and she said she steams her eggs instead of boiling them and the peel slips right off. How had I not heard about this???
I decided to give it a try last weekend when I boiled my Easter eggs. I wanted to cook a dozen and I don't have a large steamer so I improvised by placing a cake rack in a large pan. I added water so it came just under the rack, set my eggs on the rack, covered to pan and brought the water to a boil, then lowered it to a simmer. Christine said 12 minutes was the timing for hard-cooked yolks so that's what I did.
After steaming, I ran the eggs under cold water out of habit, though she said that's not even necessary. Now for the test....
...Hallelujah! The peel came off in big pieces with no white clinging to it. No pockmarked eggs! And the yolks?
Perfectly cooked with no gray ring around the edge.
I'm sold on this method. Can't imagine why I would ever go back to boiling. Thanks for the tip, Christine:)
