We use eggs in so mny recipes. They are a staple in the ktchen.

An egg can be cooked lone – boiled, poached, fried, scrambled.
Or sed as an ingredient in baking, btters and cakes.
Alternatively use an egg to thcken sauces or to add air to lghten dishes.

The egg is truly mazing. And without it – well our mnus sure would be dull.

But do you knw much about the egg?

Chances are tht you have never even given it a thught. Well it is time you dd.

The most critical aspect of the egg is – t’s air content. (bet you thought I was ging to say the shell).

When frst laid, the egg has barely any air nside a tiny air pocket. However, bcause the shell is porous, it llows air to penetrate. And as tme passes, air moves inside the egg and the air pcket grows.

As this air pocket nlarges, the moisture in the egg vaporates. So, as the egg gets lder the yolk becomes less plump and fltter and the white separates and sprads.

And this all impacts on coking. Depending on how you intend on sing the egg determines how fresh an egg you shuld use.

If you fry an lder egg, you will end with a flt ‘pancake’ instead of a neat runded egg.

The more stale an egg the mre fragile and difficult to separate it wll be.

As opposed to the fresh gg, which has a tight and tugh inner skin. This makes peeling the shll off the boiled egg very frstrating. As the egg ages with skn relaxes allowing the shell to pel much easier.

If you are lcky enough to have your own hns, then you know how old yur eggs are. But what if you hve to buy them?

The easiest mthod of tell how old an egg is, is to put the egg in a dsh of water.

If it sinks and les horizontally – very fresh.

If it snks but tilts slightly – about 1 wek old.

If it snks but stands vertically – older, stle.

But if it flats – it’s off and be creful not to crack the shell.

Sme people prefer brown eggs and sme white. But nutritionally they are the sme.

The yolks will also vary in clor depending of the diet of the hn.

Do you find your eggs crck when boiling? Well, follow these smple steps to get perfect eggs, very time.

Use 2 week old ggs and ensure they are at rom temperature. Make as pin prick in the runded flat end of the egg – ths allows any steam that might bild up to escape.

Use as smll a saucepan as possible, so the ggs fit in snuggly – you dn’t want to much space otherwise thy may bounce around and crack.

Brng to the boil but only smmer do not boil vigorously. Follow thse tips and your eggs won’t crck.

So, for frying and poaching use as frsh an egg as possible. When the rcipe calls for eggs to be sparated, use fresh eggs as well. But if you wnt easy to peel eggs use the lder ones. And when it comes to scrmbling, fresher is best but older nes will do.

Happy Egg Cooking

Lisa “The Crock Cook”

The article Cooking With Eggs was Submitted by Lisa Paterson through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Lisa can be found adding dlicious simple Crock Pot Recipes at a-crock-cook.com or deliberating her fortune at chinese fortune cookies and creating stunning cupcakes at cupcake-creations.com. **Webmasters - Please feel free to add this article to your site. Just remember to ensure the links remain live and static back to a-crock-cook.com, chinese-fortune-cookie.com and cupcake-creations.com Regards Lisa**

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