It’s Saturday and you have make a deviled eggs for a Sunday picnic, but you have no eggs in the fridge and you’ll have to buy fresh eggs. That means half of your deviled eggs will probably look like the devil when the fresh eggshells don’t peel neatly.
My son, Jimmie, has discovered a secret to peeling fresh eggs. He saw a video with Chef Alton Brown that said if you leave a carton of eggs out on the counter 24 hours before boiling and peeling, the shells come off quickly and easily. Brown also advises to peel the eggs while they are in water and it’s even easier.
Jimmie – who cooks hard boiled eggs on a regular basis – went out, bought a dozen fresh eggs, left them out for 24 hours and he said, “It really works!”
The reason fresher eggs don’t peel easily is that they have not had a chance to dehydrate. If you put them in a pot of water, they will sink to the bottom. Older eggs, however, will float.
Also, only factory eggs need to be refrigerated. During processing, the outer coating of the show is washed off. That allows bacteria to enter the egg. An egg directly from a farm that doesn’t need refrigeration. The inside is still protected.
For the past 5 or 6 years I have been steaming eggs for 15 minutes and have found that works most of the time – but not all the time.
Next time I’m at the store, I’ll buy a dozen fresh eggs, leave them on the counter overnight and give Alton Brown’s method a try.
