Re: egg shells

On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:22:55 +0000 (UTC), General Schvantzkoph
<schvantzkoph@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 13:36:20 +0000, Nunya Bidness wrote:

mm wrote:
Sometimes when opening an egg, parts of the shell break into the egg.
My mother taught me to use the main part of the shell to scoop out the
little broken piece. I did this for decades, but eventually learned
that I could, more easily it seemed, get the shell fragment out with a
spoon iirc or my fingers.

So now I wonder what was the basis of, reason for her practice? Does
anyone know, and is it Jewish?

Standard practice to remove broken shell from cracked eggs, not limited
to Jewish cooks. The reasoning is that the albumen (white) has a
specific surface tension (or liquid density) that adheres to the broken
bits, and the main part of the shell has the same albumen still on it,
making the surface tension the same between the two pieces. The smaller
bit will act as if it's 'attracted to' to larger shell scoop because of
the surface tension not being broken. A foreign object like a spoon or
other implement will not have the same liquid density and can "chase"
the broken bit around until it reaches a similar state.

From my time in restaurant kitchens, using fingers or spoons can cause
cross contamination and is not "recommended practice" for most kitchens.

What may be standard Jewish practice (I've not noticed in among non-J
cooks) is cracking eggs into separate cups before use. As I recall, it
was to check for blood on the yolk.

Hope this helps,
vic

There is nothing Jewish about cracking an egg into a separate cup, the
purpose is to make sure the yoke isn't broken before you separate the
egg.

That's a good idea too, but Jews do it even if no separation is going
to be done. The Jewish purpose is to see if the egg being opened has
a blood spot, in which case it is thrown away**, rather than being
mixed with other eggs already opened.

**Or maybe there are other things one can do with it.

You can't beat the whites stiff if there is yoke mixed in so you
need to check the yoke integrity before you separate it.

I crack eggs into my hand and separate them by letting the white slip
between my fingers, it's much faster than any other method. If the yoke
is broken you don't open your fingers and you pore the whole egg into the
yoke bowl.

Interesting. Sounds like that would work too, if one didn't have
hands too small.
.

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