Jun 11, 2009
Bossy’s Favorite Things.
Eggs. Fresh eggs.
When Bossy lived on a farm she raised chickens. 27 of them. And every day Bossy collected a mass of eggs, which she would scramble to prepare. Heh. Fried eggs, frittatas, cakes — it was difficult to keep up.
But the thing Bossy learned while tending chickens is fresh eggs are completely different from what is sold in most markets. The yolk, when cracked is orange — and not just orange but über orange.
In addition, fresh eggs, when boiled, are almost impossible to peel — but this is a Favorite Thing, so Bossy won’t mention the whole impossible to peel thing.
These days Bossy purchases her eggs from markets that carry free range organic eggs blah blah blah and usually none of them come close to the kind of freshness she remembers.
With the exception of the above carton of eggs Bossy almost didn’t purchase, because she typically doesn’t like to purchase her eggs from the same store that sells inflatable water slides.
Who knew? And actually, the above egg photo was taken after they sat in Bossy’s fridge over the weekend. The initial cracked eggs were way more impressively fresh and orange.
I want to get just one more laying hen, so then I’d have three eggs a day. That’s about as many as I could keep up with. 27 is just craziness.
Mmmmmmm. Eggs. My favourite kinda eggs (I know you wanted to ask!) is eggs benedict. Poached just perfect and smothered in rich eggy sauce. Great. Rumbly tummy just before bedtime.
It;s downright dangerous coming to your place sometimes Bossy!
BB
PS Another baby Dane post at my place…
I can’t remember the last time I had an egg and I know that I’ve never had a fresh one.
Relish the one stop shopping, Bossy, as part of your poverty party. You’re saving gas.
I had fresh eggs from chickens that I have 2 degrees of separation from – my friend’s sister’s chickens – and they were a) the smallest chicken eggs I have ever seen and b) delicious.
Where did you buy them?
Are they the Eggland’s Best brand from That Store?
Keep your eyes open. In this part of the world (Eastern Europe) the hens are fed some orange-yellow pigment. The taste gives it up, it’s not the real thing.
Throw some salt in the water when you are boiling your fresh eggs. Makes the peeling easier!
I heard that the orange color comes from the food the chicken eats. In Italy the chickens are fed very orange corn, so that makes their yolks very orange. Anybody know if this is true?? I had not heard that it was due to freshness.
I heart fresh eggs. We’ve been getting them periodically from friends and now we are going in together with the neighbors on a dozen chicks, who just arrived last week. Which means I need to get cracking on the coop.
And canadianfan is correct, yolk color is predominantly determined by pigments in the feed. Many, many years ago when I took animal nutrition, we had to calculate how much corn to add so that the yolks and chicken fat would have the yellow color consumers want. When I went to India in March, egg yolks were pale. Pale, pale, pale. Still, the yolk of a fresh home-raised egg is firmer and thicker, and the shells are way stronger. No comparison to store-boughten.
Funny story: When we first moved to town when I was in the 6th grade, I threw away a whole 18 pack of eggs from the grocery store, because I had never seen eggs that weren’t fresh out of a chicken’s butt. And yolks that are so pale yellow? Obviously from sick chickens. Or maybe they are rotten eggs.
i figured that farm fresh eggs had yellower yolks due to the richer diet…bugs and such…that the chickens might be eating. the store bought eggs come from strictly grain fed birds. i know that some of the chickens i came across in turkey basically foraged for food and they had some of the best tasting eggs around.
For a while there we were getting duck eggs from a co-worker. Now those were some rich yolks.
Sigh. Husband won’t let me have ducks. He’s probably right, in our case. But — sigh.
Try putting the pan of freshly boiled eggs under some very cold running water for a couple of minutes. This makes the egg draw away from the shell and the peeling is easy. Best eggs are grass fed. Yumm!