251–260 of 275 posts
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Many cities are launching urban chicken programs to allow people to keep their own coops. I figure if you're going to allow dogs in all their kid-biting, sidewalk-pooping, late-night barking glory, why not allow chickens in the city?
Dogs are trainable. Roosters not.
I think part of the article that's getting glossed over is: " A refrigerated egg, no matter the source, will be good for four or five weeks. Unrefrigerated eggs are best used within a week, though they may be fine for two. " So, one would want to refrigerate eggs (washed or unwashed) anyway if they're not all going to be used immediately.
Unwashed eggs may have muck on the surface. Germs can't enter the egg while it's dry. That's essentially both sides of the game, there.
Putting a mucky egg in a moist environment (like a fridge) provides a transmittable medium. Doesn't matter that it's cold, it's not cold enough to kill (eg) salmonella. That enters the egg and may be a significant enough volume to cause its consumer problems.
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That's for soft boiling, surely? Hard-boiled eggs are usually left in for longer. What I do for mine: put in cold water, place on medium heat until water begins to boil (~9 mins), deactivate hob and leave for 12 mins, rinse with cold water, dry and place in fridge, leave for 12-18 hours at least. When ready to eat: peel off shell, remove skin that's left near the air pocket, stuff in piehole. (They're fine to eat imm…
Your method is what I was doing before I started steaming them recently, though I generally let them stand in the hot water for a couple minutes longer. If doing this, older eggs are much easier to peel. You might also try peeling after just 5 minutes in an ice bath. Steaming them makes even the ones done with new eggs easy to peel, and they cook without an air pocket in my recent experience.
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_perfect_har...
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Personally, I can't tell the difference in flavour between a fresh egg and an old egg. Texture is the only thing I've noticed. Though, for instance, that can be quite important in some egg dishes like tamagoyaki. For flavour, a much bigger difference can be seen from the diet of the hen. Grain fed battery hens have pretty bland eggs. I obsess about my tamagoyaki, so I'm willing to go to some extremes to get good, fre…
If you know anyone with chickens, get an egg off them. The difference between the eggs and store bought, free range, is night and day. I don't know why, but the yolk is orange for starters. It may have been due to the species of chicken I suppose?
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We have about 25 chickens right now and we just picked up another 18 chicks today. Our's free range on our land and they're fantastic at keeping bugs down. We've had some problems with snakes, but we're in the country outside Austin, TX and snakes are just a way of life out here. We even had to remove a rattlesnake from inside the house a few weeks back. Skunks are a big problem this year -- lots of them out and abou…
You can buy free range organic eggs at Whole Foods for less than $5 a dozen.
As such their yolks will tend to be yellow instead of orange or nearly red, as true pastured chicken eggs yolks will be.
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Here (Norway) they are usually white. Brown eggs are a little more expensive.
Not here (in this part of Norway). The eggs I bought most recently from our local Kiwi (Svelvik, Vestfold) are brown and they were the cheapest eggs I could buy, FirstPrice.
And I'm an immigrant: Knowing different colors of eggs are common in different areas makes me a bit more intrigued in that bit of farming. The farms are different here than they were in the US. Conversation points for next time I'm out on a farm! Thanks muchly.
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I also keep chickens (easter-eggers, too!), but I've got to be honest, I can't taste the difference in a store-bought egg vs my own. Can definitely see it in the yolk color, no doubt about that. What is the difference you taste? Now, if you ever butcher your own, THAT is a huge difference in taste. Night and day, similar to garden-grown sweet corn vs what you get at the market.
> I can't taste the difference in a store-bought egg vs my own. What are you feeding them? If you're feeding them commercial feed, I wouldn't expect much difference in taste.
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Dogs are trainable. Roosters not.
Urban folks keeping chickens for their eggs often don't keep roosters.
In North America, I cannot speak to the quality of the conditions in which the eggs are laid, but they are washed. The Health Department requires that washed eggs be refrigerated due to the removal of the cuticle or "bloom". In the supermarket, eggs are refrigerated accordingly and they should be refrigerated at home too.
In the U.K. the eggs don't undergo any process that removes the cuticle and thus they're not refrigerated in the supermarket and thus don't need to be refrigerated at home.
When I pick the eggs from our free as in "can come and go as they please" chickens in the morning, some of the eggs I have been stepped all over by careless chickens with dirty feet and thus I like to wash those eggs and they can either then be dipped in mineral oil to mitigate the need for immediate refrigeration or as I frequently do, I put them in the fridge after I wash them. If the eggs are clean, I don't wash them and leave them on the counter where I treat them as good for 2-3 weeks without a second thought. Of course, if I were selling these eggs, which sometimes I do, it's usually less of a ball ache my explaining why they don't need refrigeration than it is just to wash them and tell people just to keep them in the fridge as normal - unless they want the whole "farm fresh organic treated like wild chickens" experience, in which case I tell them to keep them on the counter in a little wicker hay lined basket for that farmhouse vibe... and eat them up within a week... because that way they'll buy more.
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Or just not buy them if they are not going to be used immediately. Eggs quickly lose their quality (try poaching a week-old or refrigerated egg). I understand this may be unrealistic for car-dependant US households that have no option but to shop in large batches...
I'd propose as an amendment that you're on to something that its cultural, but probably much less controversial in that its merely a simple sorting system. Does it never expire? Looseleaf tea, sugar, honey, spices, salt ... that goes in cabinet. Does it expire/rot eventually no matter if its hours or months? Simple, all that stuff goes in fridge. No need to ponder or remember or search two places. If its eternal its…