The New Complete Book of Food
Refrigerate hard-cooked eggs, including decorated Easter eggs. They, too, are suscep-
tible to Salmonella contamination and should never be left at room temperature.Preparing This Food
First, find out how fresh the eggs really are. The freshest ones are the eggs that sink and lie
flat on their sides when submerged in cool water. These eggs can be used for any dish. By
the time the egg is a week old, the air pocket inside, near the broad end, has expanded so
that the broad end tilts up as the egg is submerged in cool water. The yolk and the white
inside have begun to separate; these eggs are easier to peel when hard-cooked. A week or
two later, the egg’s air pocket has expanded enough to cause the broad end of the egg to
point straight up when you put the egg in water. By now the egg is runny and should be
used in sauces where it doesn’t matter if it isn’t picture-perfect. After four weeks, the egg
will float. Throw it away.
Eggs are easily contaminated with Salmonella microorganisms that can slip through an
intact shell. never eat or serve a dish or bever age containing r aw fresh eggs. salmonella
is destroyed by cooking eggs to an internal temper ature of 145°f; egg-milk dishes such as
custards must be cooked to an internal temper ature of 160°f.
If you separate fresh eggs by hand, wash your hands thoroughly before touching other
food, dishes, or cooking tools. When you have finished preparing raw eggs, wash your hands
and all utensils thoroughly with soap and hot water. never stir cooked eggs with a utensil
used on r aw eggs.
When you whip an egg white, you change the structure of its protein molecules which
unfold, breaking bonds between atoms on the same molecule and forming new bonds to
atoms on adjacent molecules. The result is a network of protein molecules that hardens
around air trapped in bubbles in the net. If you beat the whites too long, the foam will turn
stiff enough to hold its shape even if you don’t cook it, but it will be too stiff to expand natu-
rally if you heat it, as in a soufflé. When you do cook properly whipped egg white foam, the
hot air inside the bubbles will expand. Ovalbumin, an elastic protein in the white, allows
the bubble walls to bulge outward until they are cooked firm and the network is stabilized
as a puffy soufflé.
The bowl in which you whip the whites should be absolutely free of fat or grease, since
the fat molecules will surround the protein molecules in the egg white and keep them from
linking up together to form a puffy white foam. Eggs whites will react with metal ions from
the surface of an aluminum bowl to form dark particles that discolor the egg-white foam.
You can whip eggs successfully in an enamel or glass bowl, but they will do best in a copper
bowl because copper ions bind to the egg and stabilize the foam.What Happens When You Cook This Food
When you heat a whole egg, its protein molecules behave exactly as they do when you whip
an egg white. They unfold, form new bonds, and create a protein network, this time with