Some entirely practical advise: How to peel an egg

This may be totally out of keeping with the rest of this blog. I am fascinated by the complexities of life but often the most interesting things I learn are the simpliest. Boiling eggs is easy. Peeling them always seemed to be a hit and miss thing. Sometimes the shells came off easily. Sometime not so easily and the egg would be decimated in the process.


Today it was time for lunch and I boiled three eggs. I thought that the internet must surely answer the question as to what is the problem. Why could I peel some eggs easily and others with great difficulty? So I read several methods for peeling eggs. This sounds stupid, but I only today did I learn how to peel an egg efficiently. And it worked perfectly on all three eggs.

The process is simple. First, rapidly cool the eggs. Dump the boiling water and replace it with cold water. Give the egg a bit of time to cool. Now hold the egg upright and bang the big end on a hard surface flattening it a bit. Turn the egg over and do the other end. Both ends should be slightly flat as a result. Put the egg on a hard surface anywhere on the remaining smooth smooth part of the shell. Gently put your palm on the top of the egg and roll the egg toward you until you have gone around the egg one time. This will crack the entire outer shell of the egg. And unless you pushed hard the egg itself will be fine.

At this point you should be able to peel the entire egg in almost no time at all. Total time is under 10 seconds and the egg peels perfectly. That is useful to know, easy to remember, and will come in handy. And I feel silly that so much of life has gone by and I only learned that today. And a fringe benefit is that I shouldn't get too many nasty comments for posting it except by the Egg Liberation Front and their fellow travelers.

By the way there is a method that does something similar except it removes the shell from the ends first. Then you blow in one end and egg comes out the other end. It is slightly faster except I'm not sure other people will appreciate eating an egg that has your saliva on it. Here is a video of the process. The only difference is this guy peeled it under cold water. I didn't find that necessary and I didn't want egg shall clogging the drain.