Once again I set out to make some delicious deviled eggs from our duck eggs. Prior to this I decided not to listen to looked up advice to wait until they're at least a week old to boil and ended up having a awful peeling mess. This time I waited and they were about 3 weeks old (some closer to 4 weeks) but still looking good.
I started peeling and it was great! Pieces of shell and the outer membrane came right off without any trouble. And then I started to find a yellow patch. I kept peeling and found some pretty nice sized air sacs that took off a large chunk of the egg (no big deal!). I thought maybe it was just a weirdly located yolk and kept peeling...
ALL 11 eggs had that yellow patch of various sizes and locations! So I went to cutting them in half and found that the yolk was unfortunately located SO close to the outer part of the egg that most of them had a very thin white layer between the yolk and the outside. Okay for hardboiled eggs you'll eat whole, but not for deviled eggs.
But these were for me and my family and not for a visual appeal contest so I decided to go with it. Maybe it was the age. Maybe the ducks were stressed. Maybe they need more calcium. No idea.
And as I continued to try and plop the yolk out of the white without ripping that thin area (it didn't go too bad, actually, only a few lost edges!) I noticed an interesting thing. The normal part of the white seemed to be split in half. Like a white separated inside the white, which held the yolk and that thin membrane. It was the strangest thing. I wish I had pictures but I have nothing to take pictures on at the moment!
But in the end I finally got my weirdly shaped and thin-sided deviled eggs and they tasted great.
On to the questions.
What causes the yolk to be so close to the edge of the egg? Normal for older eggs? Something in the duck's diet? Just a rather odd phenomenon? (The last batch that didn't peel well didn't have that!)
The whites of the egg were super flimsy. I could push on the shelf to crack it and literally make a large indent in the white! Is that from overcooking?
What would cause that separation within the white that made each egg appear to have a "white inside the white"?
Any tips for future deviled duck eggs?
I started peeling and it was great! Pieces of shell and the outer membrane came right off without any trouble. And then I started to find a yellow patch. I kept peeling and found some pretty nice sized air sacs that took off a large chunk of the egg (no big deal!). I thought maybe it was just a weirdly located yolk and kept peeling...
ALL 11 eggs had that yellow patch of various sizes and locations! So I went to cutting them in half and found that the yolk was unfortunately located SO close to the outer part of the egg that most of them had a very thin white layer between the yolk and the outside. Okay for hardboiled eggs you'll eat whole, but not for deviled eggs.
But these were for me and my family and not for a visual appeal contest so I decided to go with it. Maybe it was the age. Maybe the ducks were stressed. Maybe they need more calcium. No idea.
And as I continued to try and plop the yolk out of the white without ripping that thin area (it didn't go too bad, actually, only a few lost edges!) I noticed an interesting thing. The normal part of the white seemed to be split in half. Like a white separated inside the white, which held the yolk and that thin membrane. It was the strangest thing. I wish I had pictures but I have nothing to take pictures on at the moment!
But in the end I finally got my weirdly shaped and thin-sided deviled eggs and they tasted great.
On to the questions.
What causes the yolk to be so close to the edge of the egg? Normal for older eggs? Something in the duck's diet? Just a rather odd phenomenon? (The last batch that didn't peel well didn't have that!)
The whites of the egg were super flimsy. I could push on the shelf to crack it and literally make a large indent in the white! Is that from overcooking?
What would cause that separation within the white that made each egg appear to have a "white inside the white"?
Any tips for future deviled duck eggs?
