Shelling hardboiled eggs!

[Linaka]

Jovin------Look what you started--We're all smiley craaaazy! What fun----Linaka

 

[Jovin]

I know..and I actually managed to make a couple of posts without even one! Am I sick, or what?

No, just busy sorting out kitchen and bathroom cupboards, getting cleared out before packing to move.

Whoops...I can't help it...gotta do it!

somebody stop me....

oh no..it's a disease...

(am I going to get kicked out of here?)

HELP!! I'm sick..I need help...someone call a doctor

NO...not THAT kind!
...call an ambulance...

Jovin (who needs help!)

 

[MJ]

Ya Jovin, now I'm addicted to pasting these little bugers everywhere!

 

[Jovin]

Actually, MJ..(I know you're REALLY Michael Jackson!)...you can almost carry on a conversation with smilies, if you're good enough, and if you have NO LIFE like me!

Jovin (let's see if I can make this post without including one smiley)...it's so hard....

 

[Jovin]

cooking question: What's the best way to cook rice? I'm referring to long grain here. I've always gone by what a cook on tv said...formula 1, 2 and 3... one cup rice, two cups water, yields three cups...she said put it in cold water, cook 15 min..don't remove lid. My daughters find my rice like glue...I like it that way, but I do cook it a couple or more minutes longer sometimes.

Any suggestions, or preferences according to Product names?

 

[Barbara L]

Jovin,

Do you have a gas or electric stove? For either, use at least double the water to the amount of rice.

For gas, bring to a boil. Then stir and cover with a tight-fitting lid and turn as low as you possibly can and cook for 14 minutes. Do you rinse it when it is done? If not, that could be why it is sticky. Put in a strainer and rinse before using to remove stickiness.

For electric, bring to a boil. Stir and cover with a tight-fitting lid, then (leaving on the burner) turn burner off and let sit for 20 minutes.

Do not lift the lid during either of these methods.

Barbara

 

[Jovin]

>Do you have a gas or electric stove?

Electric

> For either, use at least double the water to the amount of rice.

I do..

>Do you rinse it when it is done? If not, that could be why it is sticky. Put in a strainer and rinse before using to remove stickiness.

NEVER heard that before! Only read that you should strain it under running water before cooking it...to get all the starch off, and I do...the water is murky that comes off of it.

>For electric, bring to a boil. Stir and cover with a tight-fitting lid,
I do that...

>then (leaving on the burner) turn burner off and let sit for 20 minutes.

What I do is, turn it down to minimum as soon as it starts to boil and then I have to keep lifting the darned pot up and down for a couple or more minutes till the darned heat cools down, or it will keep boiling over! I'm a nerd, but that's what I do. I usually cook it almost 20 min. but I keep in mind that that lady on the cooking show had said cook only 15! Don't know who it was, but she was supposedly telling you how to cook perfect rice.

>Do not lift the lid during either of these methods.
I definitely don't.
Wow! I've never heard that you should rinse the rice AFTER cooking. I've seen Rachel Ray on the Food channel cook it but I cna't remember her rinsing it either, but I could be wrong.

Thanks a whole bunch, Barbara,
Jovin

 

[lindatooo]

I have NEVER been able to cook plain rice on the stovetop - I mess it up every single time. To cook plain rice I use a rice cooker!

I can do Rissotto - but I cannot manage plain rice!

BUT I have a simply scrumptious recipe for "Cheese Rice" which is a family favorite and I'll post it in the pasta thread. So far as I know this is a completely unpublished recipe so you guys are the first to get it outside of my family! Lucky you!

You might also want to check what sort of rice you're using. Long grain is much less sticky than a short grain (as you would use in Rissoto - Arborio rice is what's used there) but with lots of liquid and cheese usually.

 

[Jovin]

Linda I was referring to long grain white rice, and yes, I'm sorry...I saw later that there was a rice and pasta thread.

Thanks for posting your recipe, and I'm sure going to try it...gotta go look.

Jovin

 

[Linaka]

Get a rice cooker---perfect rice everytime......Linaka

 

[Jovin]

Get a rice cooker---perfect rice everytime......Linaka

My daughter had one when she lived with me, and it was awful!

Jovin

 

[Barbara L]

With electric you can save yourself a lot of trouble just by turning it off as soon as you cover it and let it sit on the burner for 20 minutes. I had always cooked rice on a gas stove, but I kept messing it up when I ended up with an electric stove. A friend told me how to do it, and I have gotten perfect rice every time since.

Barbara

 

[lindatooo]

Jovin.,..found this in another thread on eggs.....from an eggspert!

Eggs in general keep a lot longer than most people think they do. The egg, like the uterus, is a steril field. If it wasn't we wouldn't be able to have baby chicks. Eggs can keep one heck of a looooooong time iwithout refrigeration if kept in a cool, dark invironment. Heat and light will cause them to go off a lot quicker.

The white being high and tight is not always an indication of freshnesh because refrigeration causes the white to loose it's structure and break down a bit.

A good way to tell just how fresh an egg is is how easily it peels when hard boiled. As an egg sits, a gas developes between the shell and the membrain around the egg. This gas allows for easy peeling. My own eggs laid by my own hens have to sit for at least a month before they will peel when hardboiled.

And hay, it makes no difference whether the eggs are cool or room tempreature, whether the water is warm or cold, whether you put vinager in the water, whether or not you let them sit in the hot water after poiling or whether you put them into cold water after boiling; a really fresh egg will not peel properly.

Something that sometimes helps however is, after boiling, run under cold water until they are cool enough to handle, then crack the shells all around and leave the eggs sit in cold water for about an hour. Some water will seep in between the cracks and sometimes this helps to loosten the shells.

Good luck.

 

[allenwoll]

I am no less perturbed than the rest of you folks out there trying to hard boil eggs. I suspect that the degree of difficulty each is experiencing is roughly proportional to his/her altitude. We are at 5,000 Ft above sea level -- very poor hardboil results -- yuk ! But I believe that I may have found an answer, at least to one component of the problem.

My theory is that the boiling water is not getting hot enough -- the temperature at which pure water boils is inversely related to the altitude at which one is cooking (See high-altitude cooking). To prove this theory (that the water is not hot enough), I added as much salt as the hot water would dissolve (this raises the boiling point markedly) -- and presto, I got an (almost) perfectly shelled hardboiled egg. Since it was (almost), there must be more devilment at work here, but at least this is a step forward -- provided I and someone else can repeat the experiment with the same result. Perhaps it works even better at sea level.

 

[BubbaGourmet]

Allen;
I think...but am not sure... that boiling temp at your altitude is only 207 degrees. That being the case, wouldn't extending the cooking time work?

 

[allenwoll]

BubbaG,

That sounds plausible, but that has not been our experience. What I need to do is a controlled experiment, and I will, one day. The thing is, we had similar problems at 750 Ft, just not quite as bad. Next batch, I will try cooking longer, no salt.

There simply has to be a way -- I do not recall having such problems in the kitchen as I was growing up -- what has happened ?

One thing for sure -- there is presently no consensus on this subject.