Pickled egg series - First batches

My initial recipes follow. These recipes were packed with a brine solution consisting 50/50 of vinegar/water and approximately 1Tbsp salt per pt.

These recipes were 2-3 egg samples in pint jars.

1) ~1slice medium sweet onion, Tbsp red pepper, Tbsp garlic salt.

After 3 days, these looked too good to resist. They actually came out OK, but the garlic salt wasn't bad. Dried minced garlic may have worked, but powdered spices (that don't dissolve) don't work.

2) ~1slice medium sweet onion, 1/8c pickled jalepenos, Tbsp garlic salt

After three days, I gave it a shot. Wasn't that great. If I was to do this again, I would use the onion and try dehydrated minced jalepeno.

3) ~1slice medium sweet onion, 1/8c white sugar

After three days, was pretty good! Doing this again as batch 8, this time l'll wait a week ;).

4) 1/4c white sugar, Tbsp basil

I'm not sure what to expect with the basil - I just had it in the cabinet. Opening it on Thanksgiving and trying it out.

5) 1/8c brown sugar

Expect it to be simple and sweet. Trying it on Thanksgiving.

6) 1 slice medium onion, 1Tbsp red pepper

Same as 1, sans garlic. Expecting great things when they're open on Thanksgiving ;).

7) I don't know what happened, but there's no 7 ;)

8) Same as 3.

I'm going to be researching some additional recipes and ingredients, trying some technique modifications, etc etc etc. Ideas welcome!

Pickled egg series - preparation and general stuff.

In my first post of the series, I talked about how to boil eggs. In this post, I'm going to talk about the other prep.

For my pickling, I'm re-using pint-sized pickle jars or quart-sized spaghetti sauce jars with their original lids (if they're in good condition). I will want to get mason jars, but they aren't yet stocked in my local department store. Remember, pickling is not canning - you can re-use lids in pickling.

My jars were washed as normal - in the dish waster and a bit by hand. While I'm in the early prep of my stuff, I bring water to a boil in a tea kettle. When it whistles, I add a couple inches of water to each jar and cap. I then shake vigorously and place topside down while I prepare.

I will also bring up to temp my base pickling solution. This is 50/50 bottled (I used distilled initially) and vinegar (I started with cider because I had a lot, but will use white from here on out). I also add about a tablespoon of salt per pint. Salt is a preservative in this case, so we don't want to skimp (but this may be excessive). Bringing this close to - but not quite boiling would be good. When it boils, the vinegar can get pretty hard on the nose.

Other ingredients are prepared too. Anything that needs to be cut up (onions, for example), this is a good time to do it.

While your eggs are boiling, I will normally also empty my jars at this time and put the other ingredients in. Once the eggs are chilled/peeled/etc., the brine solution (the vinegar/water/salt) is poured over it all.

I find a pint jar holds about 5-6 eggs - great for sampling recipes. I think a quart jar can support a dozen or so.

The eggs are added to the jars, the brine solution is poured to fill to the top, the rim of the jar is checked to ensure there's no spices or anything preventing a good seal, the jars are topped, inverted, and left for an hour to cool (to prevent thermal shock). They are then refrigerated - topside down initially then inverted daily or so. Throughout the day, your spices and ingredients will mix. After about a week, this won't be necessary - the brine will have captured everything from the spices.

The eggs shall sit unopened for at least a week. Although pickled, many advise they shall remain refrigerated. When they are opened, they should be vacuum-sealed due to the hot-pack. Put a bit of salt on them and enjoy ;).

Recipes to follow

Pickeled egg series - boiling the eggs

Can you believe there's a science to boiling eggs? It's not that simple. You have a fist-sized mass that the center needs to cooked solid but not overcooked.

A perfect hard-boiled egg is solid through and through - with a yolk a uniform light yellow color. If you overcook, the yolk will begin to green. Undercook, and you get liquid (good for breakfast, but not for pickling).

If you've researched the topic of how to boil eggs, there's a wide variance. Whether or not to add salt... Add the eggs before the water is warm or add eggs to boiling. Boil the eggs or remove from heat... Poke the eggs or not... I'll tell you what I have found to work for me - but I'm still experimenting.

Keep in mind that I'm in the Atlanta area. Higher or lower elevations will have variances. I'm using an electric stove, so gas may have some differences as well. I'm also using large white eggs - different sizes will obviously need some tweaking. I don't expect organic and/or brown eggs to make much of a difference, but I may try one day (maybe brown eggs peel easier?)

One thing most posts /do/ agree on is, older eggs are better for boiling. Well, they're actually better for peeling. As eggs age, they will develop an air pocket in them. The air pocket will allow air to surround the egg white and the egg shell membrane as the water is boiling - thus peeling quite easily.

How old? Well, that's another conflicting issue. And complicated by poultry practices - a single pack of eggs may have eggs from multiple days. The sell by date can be no later than 30 days after the oldest egg in the package - but that doesn't mean eggs on the sell by date are 30 days old! There is one consensus, though - by the time the eggs get to the store they are already several days old.

How do you tell? Easy! Place them in water. A fresh egg will sit on its side on the bottom of your bowl. As the egg ages and t develops an air pocket, the more broad egg will start to rise and the pointed portion will fall to the bottom. This rise isn't great - around 30-45 degrees is what I'm looking for. The egg should always be touching the bottom - if it is completely floating or at a near upright position, your egg is /really/ old and should be discarded.

Ok, so now that we got our eggs, here's how to boil them... They will need to be placed in a single layer in a pot. I use a spaghetti pot, and this holds about 15 eggs. These will be covered with water that covers the eggs by an inch (I used distilled water because my municipal water is horrible, but the quality of the water is not a big deal). The water is room temp.

I usually put a couple cups of water in the pan, put the pan on the stove (still off), put the eggs in carefully, then top off the eggs so the water covers the egg by an inch or so. The burner is then started on high, and the pot is left uncovered.

Bring the water to a rapid boil. As soon as a rapid boil is reached, cover the pan with a solid cover (in my spaghetti pot, I wrap the cover in foil because it has strainer holes) and remove from heat (I put it on a cold burner). For eggs that started out from the fridge, time for approximately 21-22 minutes. For eggs at room temperature, about 18 minutes. If you use a pan with more thermal mass, these temperatures may need to be lowered.

I DO NOT add anything to the water (actually, by using distilled, you can argue I /remove/ stuff from it). Some sources say to add salt to make peeling easier, but others have written that this doesn't help and that it will cause the yolk to discolor.

As soon as the time is up, the eggs need to be chilled rapidly. This will stop the cooking so the yolk doesn't discolor, and will also shrink the egg so it will peel easier. Immersion in ice water is what I do. I take a large mixing bowl, put a layer of ice cubes in the bottom, and a bit of water. Using a spaghetti fork (whatever it's called), I remove the eggs and place them on the ice - one at a time, quickly but carefully. Once all the eggs are out, I cover the entire bowl with ice so it's heaping, then fill the bowl with tap water. If I had multiple layers of eggs, I would separate each layer with more ice and water.

After about 15 minutes of cooling, I start to peel. The secret is to break the shell in many small pieces without breaking the white. One article suggested using your boiling pan with a couple inches of cold water, placing the eggs in it, and shaking it back and fourth for a bit. I sound this to be OK, but it takes a bit of practice to get the amount of vigor correct. I also try a crack-and-massage, but found the amount of pressure difficult to control.

Once you're all cracked up, begin to peel. Under running water, pull apart at the broad end of the egg and work down. I can sometimes catch the membrane and get the shell of nearly in one piece. Most of the time, it's a bunch of small peices. Be careful not to pull the white off where the membrane may be stuck (this happens a lot on fresher eggs). If this happens, I will typically keep the egg - as long as no yolk is exposed.

I'm still experimenting a bit with times/temperatures/techniques, but this is working so far. My problem seems to be impatience - I don't wait for my eggs to age ;). I plan to pick up a heavier pan to test out - and will expect my "settle" time to be reduced by a couple minutes. I /might/ try to add a small amount (say, 1/4 tsp) vinegar to my pre-boil water to see if that affects peeling or taste. And, well, I'll play it by ear ;).