Need help soft boiling eggs.

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Dog eggs are the ones that the dogs get to eat--I screwed up my poached egg yesterday--it was too "done" for my liking, so it was a dog egg and I made another egg for myself (when you have hens, you can do that--I traded 3 doz eggs today for some venison). Dog eggs are also the eggs that we don't find the day they are laid...the eggs that are hidden in the grass/loft/etc The dogs don't mind, but I like my eggs FRESH.
I understood that from your previous post. :) I know that dogs don't lay eggs.* :) I'd love to take up chicken raising but I don't think they'll let me do that here in the big bad city, and I don't want to give up my city convenience and shopping to live in a rural area. I'm so sad that I can't have both.

(Oddly, I recently ran across a post by somebody elsewhere on the Internet, who thought chicken eggs were fertilized after they were laid! Like fishes!)

Okay--for those of you who don't have hens--you have NOT lived until you've had an egg salad sandwich made with homemade mayo using eggs you collected in the morning, warm hb eggs you also collected in the morning, and homemade wholewheat bread. Go ahead and drool. Next time I do that, I'll snap a pic if I stop myself from eating it first.
After reading Ratio (recommended here in the forum) I've decided to try home made mayonnaise at my very earliest opportunity. (My cooking gear is in storage.) As near as I can tell everybody who has tried making their own mayo says it's much better than store mayo, and that doesn't even include home made flavored mayonnaises.
 
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I don't know if it is still true, but when I lived in CA, parts of Canoga Park were zoned "ranch". I had a friend who lived there. She had a horse.

We used to walk to school together. One morning we were both late and our teachers thought we had made up this story. Most of them had never seen anything but the tract housing parts of the San Fernando Valley.

I got to her house and the horse had her tongue stuck in a tin can. Someone had opened a can of peaches and not removed the lid. It was still partially attached and pushed into the can. Well, horses like sweet things. She stuck her tongue in the can and couldn't get it out. She looked very silly: she was wearing a straw hat decorated with dry flowers and there were holes for her ears, and she had a can stuck on her tongue. That horse was so sweet. We had to stick our fingers into her mouth (have you ever seen how big the teeth on a horse are?) and wiggle and push that lid, so her tongue would come out. She never tried to bite us, even though her tongue was cut and bleeding.
 
I don't know if it is still true, but when I lived in CA, parts of Canoga Park were zoned "ranch". I had a friend who lived there. She had a horse.

We used to walk to school together. One morning we were both late and our teachers thought we had made up this story. Most of them had never seen anything but the tract housing parts of the San Fernando Valley.
I think there are still parts of CP & SFV that may allow chickens. Most of the LA neighborhoods I can afford are too densely developed for me to have any optimism that I might qualify. But one never knows, do one? :)

We still have a few orange groves in the SFV, and vegetables (particularly corn) are still being grown, primarily in the Sepulveda flood control area and adjacent. But it won't be long before nearly all of this is gone. Multi-unit housing (apartments and townhouses) are replacing the last undeveloped land.

It's odd that only a few people who are well off enough to afford larger acreage will be able to keep chickens, IOW the people who need them the least for economic reasons will be the ones who can afford to raise them. Most if not all of our eggs will come from outlying areas or perhaps even out of state.
 
Egg is also great made into the infamous - wait for it, Scotch Eggs. Those look so good. I'm wondering how fantastic they would be with a soft boiled egg inside, rather than hard boiled. Breakfast sausage and egg yolk is such a great combination. Good stuff!:chef:

eeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


Exactly how would one go about making scotch eggs from soft boiled eggs? I mean...aren't you taking a big chance trying to wrap the sausage around a soft boiled egg? Or am I just being dense? Oh, for the record nothing is better than a soft boiled egg atop a stack of pancakes dripping with syrup and butter...lots of butter.
 
Also, soft boiled eggs with crepes (particularly left over crepes). Just make soft boiled eggs with toast but instead of toast substitute reheated (or freshly made) crepes, chopped up.
 
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My take on soft-boiled, hard-boiled or anything between is a little gadget I purchased at a thrift store for about $1 many years ago. It looks a little like a tiny round electric skillet with a vented Bakelite-type dome lid, but it's an egg cooker. I LOVE it and we call it R2D2.:LOL:

It makes the most perfect poached eggs and hard- and soft-boiled eggs to perfection. The best buck I ever spent for a kitchen tool.
 
CWS-- do your hens lay "golden" eggs? ( yes, I know it was supposed to be a goose that layed the golden egg, but the kind I 'm talking about are better). The few times we purchase free range/ organic eggs, the yolks are so much deeper yellow and richer tasting. But honestly, at $6-8 US per dozen, these are a treat I seldom indulge in. Direct from a farmer, not store organic eggs. I don't know about those. They do make a better looking devilled egg platter.

I suppose all the chickens we grew while I was growing up laid eggs like this, but since those were the only eggs I ever saw, I didn't know there were other colors of yolks. And we always brought eggs to Granparents / whatever relatives we visited, so theirs were no differernt. Didn't know about a store bought egg until my late teens.

My Dad taught me how to "candle" eggs ( for fertilization or lack of ) when I was about age 4 standing on a step stool. Don't ask about possible quality control, child labor laws and the goopy messes I made on the work bench. And yes, it was a Valid Job required doing until long past when my arms got tired. We sold eggs. And, further, don't ask about how my Mom taught me the most efficient, yet primiative way to butcher chickens for freezer prep using an old tree stump, two nails and a sharp edged hatchet. I think I met up with a lot of old stewing hens and young fryer roosters. I can still do the chicken dance in my sleep. Not long later, she taught me how to remove the innards cleanly while she scalded and plucked the birds. Surprisingly, I have always and still do like chicken for dinner. I only wish they would have invented plastic gloves in the "good old days". O yeh, these are the good old days now too. Which is why I rinse and dry before introducing them to the fryer pan.
 
I once asked a scouse girl in a night club how she liked her eggs for breakfast, she replied un fertilized and nutted me.:)
 
CWS-- do your hens lay "golden" eggs? ( yes, I know it was supposed to be a goose that layed the golden egg, but the kind I 'm talking about are better). The few times we purchase free range/ organic eggs, the yolks are so much deeper yellow and richer tasting. But honestly, at $6-8 US per dozen, these are a treat I seldom indulge in. Direct from a farmer, not store organic eggs. I don't know about those. They do make a better looking devilled egg platter.

I suppose all the chickens we grew while I was growing up laid eggs like this, but since those were the only eggs I ever saw, I didn't know there were other colors of yolks. And we always brought eggs to Granparents / whatever relatives we visited, so theirs were no differernt. Didn't know about a store bought egg until my late teens.

My Dad taught me how to "candle" eggs ( for fertilization or lack of ) when I was about age 4 standing on a step stool. Don't ask about possible quality control, child labor laws and the goopy messes I made on the work bench. And yes, it was a Valid Job required doing until long past when my arms got tired. We sold eggs. And, further, don't ask about how my Mom taught me the most efficient, yet primiative way to butcher chickens for freezer prep using an old tree stump, two nails and a sharp edged hatchet. I think I met up with a lot of old stewing hens and young fryer roosters. I can still do the chicken dance in my sleep. Not long later, she taught me how to remove the innards cleanly while she scalded and plucked the birds. Surprisingly, I have always and still do like chicken for dinner. I only wish they would have invented plastic gloves in the "good old days". O yeh, these are the good old days now too. Which is why I rinse and dry before introducing them to the fryer pan.
My hens do lay golden eggs--the yolks are golden because of the food they eat. I can't sell their eggs because of various laws, but I do have friends lining up for them--I barter the eggs.:), who knew having chickens could be so much FUN!
 
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:wacko:
oh, there's nothing like a runny yolked, ss up egg over a medium rare steak.

the yolk becomes a decadent sauce for the meat as you cut into it.


Try this by cooking the egg in hot oil instead of water, the crispy white and the runny yolk are a great combination. You can see Jacques Pepin preparing these on UTube.

I could use some tips on how to get a soft boiled egg open to eat without making a mess and getting bits of the shell into it. :ermm::ohmy::LOL:
 
I decided I need to make soft eggs this morning for breakfast (thanks to this thread).

I used the technique from the link I listed up top and it was flawless. Put the eggs in a small pot, covered with water and brought to a boil. Once the bloops started cover, turn off and 5 minutes (these are extra large). Dunk in an ice bath... perfect.

This is about the simplest way I have seen going. Eggs straight from the fridge, no need to warm them up, no shocking them in boiling water.
 
Soft boiled eggs are 3-5 minutes in a rolling boil here. Depends on your altitude how long to cook 'em. I have egg cups for mine so they get pulled out, popped into an egg cup and I whack the top off with a knife. Dip those toast fingers and chow down!

Side note: When my youngest was about 5 or 6 she once came home for lunch and ate 7 soft boiled eggs with toast! Considering she didn't break 50lbs til she was in about grade 3...that's a LOT of eggs for a little girl!
What a Girl she is a sweetie just like mom.:LOL:
kades
 
After reading all this, I think I'll just stick with my egg poacher. Butter the cups or spray with Pam put in egg, this is after I fill the pan part , part way with cold water. Turn on the gas cover the pan with lid and let her go, a soft slow simmer. Now pop the bread in the toaster, and we are almost set to eat.:yum:
kades
 
Like everyone else said. I am going to try a different method, just for the heck of it. I do my hard boiled eggs this way and they are perfect every time.

I will place the eggs in a pan with enough cold water to cover. then bring to a boil, turn off the heat and cover the pan. let stand for about 8 mins (12-15 for hard boiled). Remove them from the pan and run under cold water until you can handle them. Do what you will with them after that. Personally, I like to put them in an egg cup and take the top of the shell off and enjoy.

I do mine exactly this way, although I only let them stand for 6 minutes instead of 8. They are perfectly cooked every time, and no risk of the egg cracking in boiling water. This method is really as fool proof as you can get. To get them out of the shell, I break them in half with the back of a knife over a bowl with buttered toast bits, and scoop out the egg from the shell over the toast bits. Season with seasoned salt and pepper. Yumm.
:chef:
 
I recall soft boiled eggs referred to as "three minute eggs." It seems to me that the traditional method of cooking soft boiled eggs takes exactly that, 3 minutes.
 
To get the egg out of the shell--I top the more pointed end (this is where the air pocket develops as the egg cures--farm fresh eggs have more moisture than those that have cured so won't have the airpocket unless left to cure 2-3 weeks in the fridge) with a butter knife and use the shell as the egg cup...or, I scoop out and put in a small bowl, add s&p and stir it up. I tend to eat mine with greens and grains, so no toast here.
 
once again, thanks to everyone for some great info, ideas, and stories.

we have our egg cook off planned for either sunday or monday, when i start my vacation.

lots of different methods to mull over.
 
once again, thanks to everyone for some great info, ideas, and stories.

we have our egg cook off planned for either sunday or monday, when i start my vacation.

lots of different methods to mull over.

Don't forget the egg shampoo. And remember, your wife will thank you.:LOL:

Seeeeeya; And I'm not saying who I am.:ohmy:
 
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