Easy to peel FRESH LAID hard boiled eggs!

[Blooie]

I think if they came out the chicken hard boiled and peeled, I'd still have trouble.

 

[Old Philosopher]

I think if they came out the chicken hard boiled and peeled, I'd still have trouble.

Seriously...try this steaming process I posted.....

 

[Blooie]

K.....but if it works I'm gonna miss my unique deviled eggs.

 

[Old Philosopher]

Quote:
Just read this link! ROFLAO!!! What talent you lack in making Deviled Eggs, you make up for in talent for writing humor.

 

[JetCat]

Finally found the right, current thread for my revelation! <whew>

I have tried just about every possible idea on how to boil eggs for easy peeling, especially fresh eggs. We all raise chickens because we want FRESH eggs, right? Not ones we've had to set aside for 2 weeks to make them easier to peel.

Believe me, I've tried them all. At one point I had 45 dozen eggs in the 'fridge, so I went on an "egg peeling binge", doing 1/2 doz at a time. Tried all the recommendations, including varying the boiling time, starting with cold water, adding salt or vinegar to the water....blah, blah... All the boiled eggs were transferred to a bowl of ice water to chill after cooking, so that was a constant in my experiments.

Then just yesterday I came across the last, greatest and best method I have yet to discover. Steaming! Just like in the OP here, with a variation.
It started out in the OP talking about a pressure cooker. Don't need one. I used a double boiler stainless steel steamer. The source I found used a bamboo steamer so they could load it up with a dozen or more fresh eggs.

Get the water to the point of boiling. Place your eggs in your steamer.
Steam the eggs for 20 minutes.
Lift out the eggs with tongs and put them in a bowl of iced water.
Let them cool until they are cold to the touch, and you are able to handle them for peeling.
Roll the egg on its side to loosen the internal membranes.
Crack the big end of the egg, and start peeling.

All these day old eggs I did last night peeled perfectly! The peel would come off in a continuous strip most of the time, like peeling an apple.

After all these years, I've found my new method, free of picking, running under water, cussing, or ending up with egg salad when I wanted deviled eggs.

Try it...you'll like it!

i've never had any problems with the way i've posted but i'm always willing to give new things a try so i'll let ya know in about 20 min how it worked for me!!

 

[Old Philosopher]

Don't forget that soak in ice water!!!!

 

[JetCat]

Don't forget that soak in ice water!!!!

for some reason one 'cracked' while steaming!!




cracked or not, it pealed easy enough after a dip in the ice bath.




while not like pealing an apple, 5 of 6 pealed with ease.




however one of them was 'Stuck Like Glue'



20 min was perfect timing, firm yolk without overcooking (sorry didn't take a pic of the yolk before they disappeared), i'd say it was enough of a success that i'd be willing to give it a try again and see if i have better results.

 

[Blooie]

Well, bye bye Blooie's Rockin' Deviled Eggs, I guess!

 

[Old Philosopher]

I have a half-baked (no pun intended) theory
on why steam works better than water for loosening the shells on fresh eggs. Maybe there is an expert here on thermodynamics and molecular biology who can set me straight.

It all starts with a couple things we know about eggs. Eggs are porous. We know that if we are force to wash dirty eggs we should do so in the hotest water we can stand to tough. Cold water on a warm (room temperature) egg can draw contaminates from the surface into the egg and promote spoilage. We also know that if we candle a fresh egg we will see very little 'gas' space inside the egg. Conversely, if we candle a month (+) old egg, we see quite a large "air pocket" in it. This is what gave rise to the old wives tale that if an egg floats it's old and "bad". All this is caused by the contents of the egg loosing a lot of its liquid content due to evaporation through the shell over time.

It's my theory that submerging the egg in water, even boiling water, actually desiccates the egg, rendering the white and yolk tougher, and fusing the inner membrane to both the shell, and the albumen.
Steam, on the other hand, is less dense, and in a covered pot will be hotter than the boiling water which produced it. The lid on the pot acts in a lesser way like the pressure cooker in the OP here. So we have super-saturated air (steam) which is also super-heated (above 100 deg C) cooking these eggs without drying them out inside. Due to the porosity of the shell, the steam might even be adding moisture to the shell and membrane.

The ice water bath, whether used with boiling water cooking, or steam, causes condensation on the adjacent surfaces of the cooked albumen, membrane and shell so that they are easily separated. But because of the drying process in the water bath, this doesn't always succeed.

Anyway....whatever.....

 

[Old Philosopher]

Thanks, J.C. for the field test, and the pictorial! I had 1 out of 6 that was also stubborn, though not quite as bad as your experience. Considering with other methods and fresh eggs, I might get 1 out of 6 that actually peels I figure the odds are now in my favor with this method.
Thanks for sharing.