As is well known, eggs have a narrow end and a fat end (something to do with air and chick development.)
When you crack an egg over either a bowl (for mixing) or into a frying pan – I suspect the two have different answers–which orientation of the egg is best for prevention of uncontrolled destructive crazing, along with quickest egg-contents emptying and, for fried eggs, accuracy of placement?
The question applies to breaking on the edge of the bowl or pan, two-hand opening, and one-hand opening.
The pro egg cracker that I know was a cook in the army and he can crack eggs one-handed with both hands simultaneously. It’s fun just to watch him plow through a couple dozen eggs. His technique is to hold the egg with the wider end toward the palm and the narrower end toward the fingers, crack on a flat surface and then he pulls the two halves apart with a hand movement that I can’t seem to replicate.
He insists that an egg should never be cracked on the edge of anything - only on a flat surface. Apparently, using an edge can drive fragments of eggshell back into the egg, which then get into the food. I’ve heard this from other people as well. While I’ve never had much of a problem with shell fragments using any method, I’m willing to take their word on which is better.
Most of the TV chefs say to crack the egg on a flat surface, not on the edge of a bowl or pan. I’ve tried it, and it doesn’t work so well for me. Maybe need more practice…
While I’ve taken the instructions not to use the edge of bowls/pans, instead of using the counter I’ve started using the interior side of a bowl. And I do feel I need to smack the egg a little harder than I did when using an edge to crack it.
How the heck do you crack an egg on the end?! I’ve never even imagined, much less seen, such a technique. Isn’t the egg super-strong longitudinally?
Flat surface, as close to midway between ends as possible. That way I have two more or less even halves for easy, balanced manipulation of the egg contents.
Who CARES about how you hold the egg! I wanna know how to break an egg and NOT get any gloppy on your fingers. I’ve NEVER cracked an egg without needing to rinse off my fingers afterwards.
I’d love to be able to do the one-handed egg, but I’m afraid it would take several dozen, at least, to get the hang of it.
~VOW
In 40+ years of egg cracking on various and sundry edges I’ve never had an issue with eggshell fragments getting into the eggs, however, if you are cracking a gazillion eggs quickly I can see how you would probably be moving very fast with a lot of force and this might be an issue for mass cracking.
Well someone needs to move this to the Pit because OBVIOUSLY you take your shoes off when you enter the house, and the toilet paper comes over the top for crying out loud.
I’ve always done the wide side (and also don’t understand how cracking the pointy end would even work.) I’ve had eggshell in my mixture maybe 1 every twenty-five egg crackings so don’t find that enough incentive to crack against a flat surface. How hard is it to reach in and flick out the eggshell? (How do you not end up with egg all over your flat surface?!)
Anyway, as with most things I’ve found the solution to this “problem” is to quit using eggs. (Just like I solved my dirty-dishes problem by throwing them away and buying new ones.)
Every one says that about cracking on a flat surface, yet I’ve never been able to not get shell in there while doing it that way. Plus the egg doesn’t break as well, often necessitating me to finish the crack with my fingers.
I’m suffering from a failure of imagination, here. If you’re cracking an egg “on a flat surface” what are you doing exactly? I can only imagine that you’re smashing it against something flat, which seems guaranteed to create a hellicious mess if it actually cracked the egg in the first place.