Chicken egg is an indispensable product on the table of any Russian. And how many dishes can be prepared from them! Omelets, scrambled eggs with various fillings, pancakes, cheesecakes, and simply boiled eggs - all this is healthy and tasty. But rarely does anyone know the rules and secrets of boiling eggs.
How to choose good eggs?
There are not many species of birds in the world whose eggs a person can eat. Chicken and quail are the most delicious, nutritious and safe. Eating duck eggs, there is a big risk of contracting salmonellosis. Therefore, they cannot be found on store shelves. There are ostrich eggs - they are very nutritious and have excellent taste, but in our latitudes they are considered exotic.
Choosing fresh chicken eggs is not easy, and even the most sophisticated housewives often buy expired goods. There is a special device - an ovoscope, at the request of the buyer, the seller must provide it to check the freshness of the eggs on the spot. The ovoscope allows you to examine the condition of the yolk through the shell - if it has leaked.
Age and size directly affect how much you cook eggs after boiling. Fresh ones need less heat treatment.
The larger and heavier the egg, the older it is. By age and size, eggs are graded into categories:
- 0 - selected dining rooms;
- C1 - the first dining category;
- C2 - respectively, the second dining room;
- D1 is the first dietary category.
The category affects how much you cook eggs after boiling. The larger they are, the longer the cooking should take. If you need to get a soft-boiled egg, then the time, accordingly, will decrease. But more about that below!
Hard Boiled Chicken Eggs
Hard-boiled - this means up to a dense protein, loose yolk. This method of preparation is usually chosen for salads (when they know that a boiled egg will need to be cut or grated).
How much to cook hard-boiled egg (time for which they should be left in boiling water):
- selective category - after boiling for 12-13 minutes;
- C1 - 10-12 minutes;
- C2 - 8-10 minutes.
Do not overexpose the boiling time, this will lead to a change in taste, the yolk can begin to exude an unpleasant odor, the protein loses amino acids when the heat treatment time is exceeded.
Each housewife knows how to cook hard-boiled eggs. How many salads, appetizers, pies can be prepared with them! One of the most popular fillings for pies is chopped boiled eggs with green onions and dill.
Soft-boiled chicken eggs
This method of preparation maximally preserves all the useful properties of the product. The yolk contains zinc, iron, magnesium, when boiled soft-boiled, these microelements do not decompose, but will be successfully absorbed by eating. Protein retains all the essential amino acids.
How long to boil soft-boiled eggs depends on their size and freshness. As a rule, exactly two times less minutes are required than when boiling hard-boiled eggs.
Two easy ways to get delicious soft-boiled eggs:
- Immerse raw eggs with a tablespoon in already boiling water. We notice 3-5 minutes. Then, carefully, using the same spoon, take them out and immerse them in a pre-prepared saucepan with ice (or just cold) water. This method will not only save all the nutritional properties of eggs, but also very easy to clean them from the shell. Literally in ten seconds. Due to the sharp temperature difference - from boiling water to ice water - the shell will be cleaned instantly.
- The usual way - put the eggs in a pan, pour water from the tap. We wait until the water heats up. How to cook eggs after boiling? Large - 4-5 minutes. The first and second categories - 2-3 minutes. Then it is desirable to fill the eggs with cold water, this will subsequently make it easy to clean them from the shell.
Poached eggs
Despite the sophisticated French name, there is nothing complicated to prepare. In Soviet times, this method of cooking was called "egg in a pouch." It lies in the fact that the cooking time requires even less than if we decided to cook soft-boiled eggs. How many housewives cook poached eggs for breakfast, this is a nutritious, dietary and healthy dish!
It is not even necessary to heat the water or cook in the pan. A poached egg can be cooked in two minutes in a microwave. We take a small container, fill it with water (200-250 ml). Gently break the raw chicken egg directly into the water (as if we were going to cook fried eggs). We put in the microwave and set the timer for 1.5-2 minutes. Enjoy a soft poached egg with a liquid yolk.
There is a simpler way: put a pot of water on the stove, bring to a boil. Break the egg in boiling water. How to cook poached egg? One minute will be enough.
Stuffed chicken eggs
Unusual and tasty way to cook:
- Pre-cook hard-boiled eggs. How much time it will take, we already know.
- The cooled eggs are peeled. Cut in half.
- Knead the yolk thoroughly with a fork and add chopped herbs and spices to this mass.
- Gently spoon the processed mass back into the protein halves.
French Omelet
An ideal breakfast for people who eat a healthy diet.
- Break a couple of eggs in a deep plate.
- Add 50-70 ml of milk (preferably skim).
- Salt and spices to taste. You can also add chopped herbs, thin slices of sausage, slices of cheese. Beat all ingredients thoroughly with a fork until a foamy, homogeneous mass is obtained.
- Pour into a pre-heated frying pan with a non-stick coating, cover with a lid.
- After a couple of minutes, you can enjoy the taste of openwork, light omelet.
What is the difference between an omelet and fried eggs? First of all, by adding milk and filling. Some people also prefer to add kefir, whey, fermented baked milk - this is a matter of individual preference. From the filling you can choose vegetables (spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, green or onion, grated carrots), sausage, cheese, bacon, capers, tuna. Some people love omelet with salted fish (a very unusual combination).
How long does it take to cook quail eggs?
A separate point is worth mentioning this relatively new product for Russians. Quail eggs look unusual and cost more than chicken eggs. They are also much more useful: they contain zinc, magnesium, selenium, vitamin C, A. The protein of quail eggs is rich in essential amino acids, and there is practically no harmful cholesterol in the yolk.
Any experienced housewife knows how to cook quail eggs. How long does it take? Because of their tiny size, it takes only 2-3 minutes to cook hard-boiled. The yolk may remain a little damp. If you need to get as solid as possible, then the time can be brought up to five minutes.
Quail eggs are mainly used for salads: Caesar, Vitamin, Royal Olivier, Squid, Sea Breeze. By taste, they go well with seafood, cream sauce, veal, chicken, leaf lettuce, broccoli. How to cook eggs for salad? Given that they should be dense in texture - about 3-4 minutes in boiling water. Quail eggs - a real find for adherents of proper nutrition.
The biological value of eggs
The calorific value of one medium-sized hard-boiled chicken egg is 160 kilocalories. Of these, about 14 grams of protein, 12 grams of protein, 0.5 grams of carbohydrates. When frying in vegetable oil, the proportion of fat increases significantly (for example, about 35-40 grams of fat per serving of fried eggs).
One hard boiled egg contains about 530 mg of cholesterol. Therefore, doctors do not recommend eating more than one egg per day for people with chronic diseases of the liver and gall bladder.
But the almost complete absence of carbohydrates makes eggs the No. 1 product for losing weight. A constant excess of carbohydrates in the diet leads to obesity. So feel free to eat boiled eggs and do not worry about the figure!
One yolk contains about 50 μg of fluorine, 75 μg of copper, 29 μg of selenium, 2 mg of zinc, 2.5 mg of iron, 12 mg of magnesium. It is also rich in vitamins: 2 mg of vitamin E, 0.05 mg of carotene, 2.2 μg of vitamin D, 0.14 mg of pyridoxine, 7 mg of folic acid.
What are enriched eggs?
In the last couple of years, an unusual product has appeared in all supermarkets. These are the so-called enriched eggs. At a cost they are slightly higher than ordinary, "unenriched". The difference is that they contain an increased amount of selenium, iodine and healthy polyunsaturated fats (Omega-3). At the same time, the composition contains much less harmful cholesterol (when compared with standard chicken of the first category).
The process of making enriched eggs is no different from cooking ordinary ones. Doctors recommend that people with thyroid disease pay attention to this product. Due to the high iodine content, enriched eggs have a positive effect on the metabolism and metabolic processes in the body.