I guess just having celebrated Easter, and all of the festivities for the children that go along with it, we have eggs on the brain here. Over the past several years I have collected little tips and techniques from various cooking magazines that have truly made my life easier in the kitchen. Here are three tips, the first two from Cuisine At Home, and the last from Real Simple that have helped make cooking with and preparing eggs easier.
Even when it’s not in season (i.e. colored Easter eggs,) we always have hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerator. My husband takes them to work for a quick protein packed breakfast on the go, or the kids eat them for a nutritious snack. We have had an accident or two where someone thought that the egg was hardboiled and cracked a raw egg onto the counter. To avoid that mess, and to distinguish between hard cooked and raw eggs, Gabriel Mangino of Broomall, PA recommends tinting the cooking water with beet juice, food coloring, or leftover Easter egg decorating dyes. The shells pick up the color and then you don’t confuse them with the raw ones.
Since we always have hardboiled eggs on hand, one of our favorite snacks and treats to make for parties is Deviled eggs. It is really easy to mix the filling and spoon it back into the whites, but it always looks just a little fancier if you pipe the filling back into the eggs instead. In order to avoid the messy clean-up of a pastry piping bag, Jackie Cunningham of Richmond, CA, had a great idea. She puts the cooked crumbled egg yolks into a zip top bag along with the other filling ingredients, seals the top, and squishes until all of the ingredients are mixed. She then cuts the corner off of the bag and “pipes” the filling back into the egg white halves. When finished, all she has to do is toss the empty zip top bag.
Another tool that makes the preparation of Deviled eggs less messy is the Fiestaware Egg Plate. The wells work perfectly for arranging the egg whites and for holding them in place while the piping is being put back in. It’s also a great serving piece that you can use at home or take to a party.
How many times have you been baking or cooking and cracked an egg only to find a little tiny piece of shell in the bowl floating in one of the egg whites? Since you don’t want anyone biting into something hard and crunchy in your warm chewy cookies, this last tip is imperative. After cracking eggs into a bowl, look for little pieces of egg shell floating in the egg whites. If you see any, use the edge of one of the broken egg shells to “fish” out the broken piece. It works every time and keeps your hands clean.
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