I like an occasional hard-boiled egg in a tossed salad and I dearly love deviled eggs. What I do not love is trying to get a hard-boiled egg out of the shell in something resembling one piece. Not long ago I had hard-boiled a dozen eggs and set about the task of shell removal.
One of the eggs – a unique talking egg – said there was no way in hell he was coming out without a fight.
“This is my home, I love it here and I’m staying,” the egg stated. “We’ll see about that,” was my reply.
Well, the egg won.
After I finished, there was more egg attached to the shattered shells than in the white and yellow thing remaining, which barely resembled a hard-boiled egg. It looked like I had dropped something in the garbage disposal, then retrieved the remains.
The problem with a hard-boiled egg is that if the eggs are fresh, that shell is not coming off without a fight, no matter what you do.
When were in the Kitchen Outlet in Nags Head a few weeks back, I saw a pack of Egglettes as advertised on TV. Despite my wife’s strenuous objection, I bought them. They were only ten bucks and if they worked at all, they would be worth the price.
The idea is that you first crack the eggs open, drop them inside the plastic Egglettes, boil them and they pop right out, no problem.
Last night, knowing I had a salad to make the next day, I broke out the Egglettes and tried them. They actually work, but it’s not quite as easy as “Seen on TV.”
First, you must wash and thoroughly dry the Egglettes, which are small plastic cylinders with screw-on tops. Once dried, you have to either spray Pam inside or coat them with a little olive oil. I chose to spray Pam inside the Egglettes – and all over the kitchen counters, since it’s hard to accurately direct the spray of Pam. Next, you crack open the eggs and fill each cylinder, and there were just four to a pack. This means you really need at least three packs of Egglettes if you want to make a decent batch of egg salad, or if you want to devil some eggs. But I only had four, so that’s what I used.
Another important step is to make sure you have at least 4-inches of boiling water in the pan or the plastic Egglettes will touch the bottom and melt, which makes the eggs really, really hard to get out.
But I did all that – boiled the eggs for exactly 16 minutes and set aside to cool. If you ignore the cooling part, by the way, and quickly unscrew the Egglettes, scalding hot fumes will take much of the hair from your eyebrows – so let the damned things cool.
Carefully, I unscrewed the tops and the eggs inside looked great, but they still didn’t want to pop right out, so you have to take a butter knife and run around the edges, then they come out, perfect hard boiled eggs – EXCEPT – they are oval on one end, the bottom, and square on the other, the top. They would be strange looking deviled legs, for sure, but entirely edible.
Bottom line?
Even though the eggs look weird and there are a few extra steps involved, it is infinitely easier to cook and remove the shells from hard-boiled eggs with a set of Egglettes.
Yes, they work.