We have a lot of fresh eggs from our chickens and with New Years in a few days we are in full prep mode. One thing we all love for New Years are Deviled Eggs; but there is a problem, when we hard boil our eggs they stick to the shell when you peel them and they look terrible, something like this:
As my Dad would say, a big F- in presentation! So I decided to do some research to see why this is happening and if I could find a solution. I found both! The fresher the egg, the more the whites stick to the shell when hard-cooked. So it turns out the shell sticks because the eggs are SO fresh that there is no air space between the egg and the shell. Who knew!? The older the egg the more “air space” there is inside the shell. That is why store bought eggs never do this, they are old and have plenty of air space. You might want to consider purchasing fresh eggs from us! I mean who wants to eat old anything…Yuck!
Now that we knew the why, how do we fix it, I mean we don’t want our paying customers to have ugly hard boiled eggs! There are two ways to prevent this from happening.
The First we have not tried is to add and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to the water when you boil the eggs. This method seems to get very mixed results judging from the comments I read on multiple sites, so we are not suggesting this method.
The Method we suggest is:
Bring a pot of water to a full boil (with no eggs in it). Using a slotted spoon gently slide the eggs off of a slotted spoon into the boiling water. Cook for 10-14 minutes then run cold water over the eggs (or place them in an ice bath) until cool to the touch. That is it, your hard boiled eggs will now peel away nicely.
Much better!
No more ugly eggs, worked like a charm!!
Thanks for the information. There is nothing worst than to try to peel the shell off and have half the egg gone.
Great!