14 tricks for cooking eggs, such as how to make scrambled eggs in their eggshells and how to make a poached egg in the microwave.
Enjoy!
The egg is one of the most widely consumed foods on the planet, so it’s about time we put together a list of nifty tricks involving eggs…
Here is a list of topics we cover:
1. How to balance an egg
2. How to make a sunnyside up egg in the microwave
3. How to make sure your eggs are still good
4. How to make a perfect scrambled egg
5. Make a poached egg in the microwave
6. Soft boiled egg in 5 minutes
7. Scramble an egg in the shell
8. Crack an egg with one hand
9. Remove egg yolk easily
10. Make scrambled eggs in the microwave
11. How to make perfect and easy sunnyside up eggs
12. How to bake your eggs in the oven
13. How to peel eggs easily
14. Poor man’s Sous Vide egg poaching
They’ve cracked it at last! The chicken DID come before the egg.
The chicken wins!
One of the most puzzling and famous life questions has stumped people for generations. It’s the question of which came first: the chicken or the egg? In order for there to be an egg, a chicken would have had to lay it. In order for there to be a chicken, it would have had to hatch from an egg. It seems as though either answer could be the correct answer; until now.
Dr. Colin Freeman from Sheffield University along with colleagues from Warwick University have figured it all out. Their research project originally aimed to figure out how animals make eggshells because it’s an extraordinarily strong yet lightweight material that no human has been able to replicate, and the researchers hoped to learn how to develop a manmade equivalent by learning about the way animals make eggshells.
Chickens were chosen as their test subjects simply because the protein was easy to study. The study began when Freeman and his colleagues used the UK Science Research Council’s super-computer called HECToR (High End Computing Terascale Resource), which is based in Edinburgh. The “ingredients” used to make eggshells were programmed into HECToR, and that was it. The computer was left to produce results on its own, and it took weeks for HECToR to figure out how chickens make eggshells.
When HECToR finally arrived at a conclusion, the researchers were stunned when they realized that they had solved the age old question. After years and years of debate, it was finally determined that the chicken came before the egg.
“It had long been suspected that the egg came first, but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first,” said Freeman.
What they found was a protein, called ovocledidin-17 (OC-17), that exists only in a chicken’s ovaries and is vital to eggshell formation in chickens. The protein acts as an ongoing builder that pieces microscopic parts of the shell together by converting calcium carbonate into calcite crystals. The shell would not exist without this protein, which only exists in chickens, so the end result is that the chicken came first.
The protein was discovered before this research project, but HECToR made it easier for the researchers to observe the process “in microscopic detail,” thus understand the proteins significance in the eggshell-making procedure.
So what does this mean for those who always thought the egg came first? Freeman and his colleagues referred to some theories that suggest that chickens’ “ancestors evolved to create hard eggs around the time of the dinosaurs.”
In addition to answering the question that has burdened the human race for ages, the results of this study could be advantageous in the medical field since human bones and teeth are made in a similar way as eggshells. This could lead to a better understanding of how to rebuild human bones. Also, the study could help figure out how crystal structures can be made and destroyed (since the eggshells are made up of microscopic crystals). Learning how this can be done could lead to the elimination of limescale crystals on pipes and kettles.
A carrot, an egg, or coffee… You will never look at a cup of coffee the same way again!
A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.
Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word.
In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.
Turning to her daughter, she asked, “Tell me what you see. “Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied.
Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.
The daughter then asked, “What does it mean, mother?” Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity — boiling water. Each reacted differently.
The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.
The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.
The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.
“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?”
Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?
Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?
Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.
When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy.
The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can’t go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.
An excellent video of an egg being poached under water filmed with a GoPro camera.
Enjoy!
Poaching an egg in water is an art. You can’t just crack an egg into boiling water and hope it comes out right. Cooking channel How To Make Sushi Japanese Food Recipes submerged a GoPro camera into a pot of boiling water to demonstrate for viewers how to poach an egg properly. The resulting video is mesmerizing.
You may have seen the classic egg in a bottle trick before, but this is a much easier way to do it.
Enjoy!
The classic egg in a bottle experiment, where I try creating a partial vacuum in a bottle to suck an egg inside. Great fun to try with kids. Done with a slight twist.
