Melt the chocolate in water. Beat egg yolks and stir in. Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt; stir in. Whip cream, add sugar, fold in. Fridge for a few hours, then dig in!
Only Mr. Rilch doesn’t want any. Because this is the first time he watched the process. The eggs haven’t been cooked, so he’s sure he’ll get e.coli. Thing is, I’ve been making this for years, at least twenty times, and neither he nor I nor anyone has ever had any ill effects. So what’s the potential harm? Or have I just been lucky so far? (Twenty times or more.) Is it safe to eat this mousse, the way I described it?
Not a chef or a doctor. I like eating raw cookie dough when we bake cookies, the kind where they tell you, “Don’t eat the cookie dough raw”, because of the egg in it. There’s a risk, I’m sure of it, but I never got sick. I once got food poisoning from a hamburger at an all-night diner though, and there was no warning on it, the bastids!
You’ve drawn me into your mystery now. Aren’t there many recipes that call for raw egg? How are we supposed to play it safe, and still enjoy these recipes? Do most people ignore this and a very small percentage (similar to the number of people that get hit by lightning) get sick? I gots to know!
It’s salmonella that’s the worry from raw eggs, not e. coli, and the chances of any given egg having it are ~1 in 30,000*. So you just have to ask yourself, do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?
*Supposedly. I’ve seen odds that are much higher than that but I don’t recall the source.
Alton Brown would tell you to eat it. Or if you’re super paranoid (or want to feed it to elderly, infants, or immunocompromised people), buy pasteurized eggs.
I’d eat it. I’ve had plenty of raw eggs in my life, and never gotten sick from them.
It’s a common-sense issue. Common sense says if you’ve served the mousse for 20 years, and nobody’s gotten sick, then it’s probably OK. Common sense also says that raw eggs can carry salmonella, so I’d avoid serving your mousse to young children, old and/or frail people, or otherwise not-quite-healthy people. Chances are it won’t hurt them, though.
Really, when you start to read about food safety, it’s amazing that we’re not all sick, all of the time. Every time you put something in your mouth you take a risk. Cross contamination is extremely easy, and most of us in home kitchens rarely think about it. Sure, we do when it comes to chicken and eggs and some other meats, but you can as easily get E. Coli from uncooked veggies as you can from improperly handled meat.
Eggs from commercial producers in the US have clean shells, washed in chlorinated water before candling, grading, and packing. Make sure you don’t used cracked eggs, and they should be fine. If you buy eggs from free range chickens, they are more likely to have been sitting in chicken poop or other undesireable stuff before they were picked. If you don’t know if the producer washes them in chlorinated water or not, wash the eggs before breaking yourself. And don’t use cracked eggs unless you are going to cook them.
I’ve eaten raw cookie dough all my life, eaten chocolate, and have never gotten sick. You are more likely to get salmonella from pet turtles or other sources than from eating eggs.
Ditto RobDog: I’ll take the unwanted mousse off of your hands, also.
This is about exactly backwards. Eggs from cage free hens show less, not more, salmonella contamination - but the sample size is much smaller and definitions of “cage free” vary so much as to be nearly meaningless, so I wouldn’t put faith in a cage free stamp and declare those eggs perfectly safe.
The problem, as I understand it, is that salmonella is now being found on the *inside *of intact, fresh chicken eggshells. It’s contaminated before it even leaves the bird. This didn’t used to be the case, but something (Antibiotics in feed? Laying pens? Overcrowded conditions? Inbred hens? Eradication of other salmonella strains that sickened chickens? I don’t think anyone’s certain yet.) has changed in the egg production cycle with modern egg farming techniques that’s encouraged the salmonella bacteria and contaminated what were previously safe foods.
So it’s riskier to eat raw eggs now than it was when you were a kid. It’s still a pretty low risk, though.
The problem with raw eggs is somewhat exagerrated. Every year at Christmas time millions of people (maybe millions, I don’t know how many) will drink egg nog made with raw egg. Very few will become ill. And it’s most likely if they do fall ill it’s because that egg nog wasn’t kept cold. For those who are concerned you can read the various procedures in this document. Heating eggs to a temperature of 120F has often been suggested, but that is insufficient to stop the growth of salmonella. But going much higher than that will solidify the whites. If it’s a real concern, stick to yolks which have been heated to 150F or higher.
This exactly. Just buy pasteurized eggs for your risk-averse husband when you make mousse and you should be good to go. I’ve eaten a lot of raw eggs in my life but never have gotten sick from them. (Well, that’s not 100% true. I had some soft-cooked eggs that were “off” in Transylvania, and I became terribly sick within around eight hours with fever, extreme chills, and diarrhea [no vomiting, though]. Took three or four days to fully recover. Probably should have gone to the doctor. Still, that one incident didn’t stop me, and it was my fault for eating eggs the other diners I was with said “smelled funny.”)
I have backyard chickens and have done research into washing eggs and what I’ve come across says basically the opposite this. Eggs come out with a “bloom” a thin waxy covering that prevents germs from penetrating the egg, therefore an egg with the bloom left on will be safer than a washed egg. If you must wash the egg, do so just before you use it and use very hot water, but really it’s not necessary. My girls only rarely get poo on their eggs any more, their first month of laying was a bit of a learning process for them. If I do get an egg with a little poo on, I just flick it off and use that egg that day, without refrigerating it and possibly contaminating the other food in my fridge.
Man, your chickens need to come teach ours how to lay then. They’re constantly covered in filth. We usually just wash them with hot water and put them in the fridge though.
I don’t know…just because you’ve served mousse made with raw eggs for 20 years without incident, that doesn’t mean the next time you’ll be OK, the 21st year could be THE year. :dubious: But I would certainly eat it. Chocolate mousse and key lime pie are worth taking a small chance!
Now, where do you get pasteurized eggs? Are they with other eggs in an average grocery store? Are they in cartons? I always hear ‘use pasteurized eggs’ but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any.
I think you should start snaking raw eggs into your husband’s diet. Wait a few months, then let him know he has been eating raw eggs the whole time and tell him to eat the damn mousse, LOL
Yep, right next to the regular eggs, generally with an extra dollar in the price. The eggs themselves are stamped with a “P”, so if you use an egg storage device, you can still tell which is which out of the carton.
