I remember that years ago we used to crack eggs open in a seperate bowl, as every so often, the eggs would have some blood in them.
But now every cooking show I watch, Martha’s included, bypass this stage and confidently crack them straight into the mix.
What has changed?
Maybe we stopped being so prissy about tiny little drops of blood. I get such eggs occasionally, but I never saw it as being anything to prevent using the egg. Apparently, many consumers object, since such eggs are taken out of circulation if they are detected. Here’s a Staff Report by SDSTAFF Jill: Are red spots in eggs dangerous?
I’ve never seen blood in eggs. I have personally boiled and broken (and eaten) perhaps 850-900 eggs in the past two years, and perhaps and equal amount in the rest of my life.
What’s freaky though is the number of yolks in modern eggs -
I shop at Costco.
Normally, they have one particular farm-factory providing eggs. 95% of these have one yolk, and 5% have two.
One time, they switched suppliers of eggs. and 60% of those had one yolk, 30% two, 9% three, and I once found a FOUR-YOLK-EGG! Dear Lord!
Now, they’re back to the old supplier.
That new place must have been using some funky injections on dem chickens. Fertility Twins, Unite!
The seperate bowl was also to catch spoiled eggs, which are much less likely these days.
–Nott
I always assumed that there was a kosher issue here. But I second AskNott’s suggestion.
I was always told that it was to avoid getting bits of shell in the mix…better to fish it out of the bowl of only eggs than say, a bowl of batter.
It definitely is a kosher issue - eggs with blood in them are non-kosher, so (if you are kosher-observant) you want to see that an egg is bloodless before you render an entire bowl of batter non-kosher.
However, I suppose there might have also been reasons for non-Kosher-observant folks to crack eggs into a separate bowl. I just know why I (and everyone I know) do it.
This is why I use a separate bowl. It’s like magic, too: if I use a separate bowl for the eggs, I never get any shell in them, but if I throw caution to the wind, I’m bound to end up with a bunch of crunchy little bits of shell in whatever I’m making.