Tonight I made a chicken-rice-creamo’something casserole, which included three hard boiled eggs. Apparently, the Jumbo eggs I got on sale are significantly larger than the Large eggs I usually buy. Significantly enough that they must take longer to hard boil.
When I cut the first one open (it had been boiled and allowed to cool) the yolk was still dark yellow, sorta smooshy and threatenly liquid looking. Not quite running, but liquidish. Since I wanted fully boiled eggs, I thought of the song, sighed and started boiling new eggs.
The second batch of eggs was more done, but still not as done as I generally like them. After looking at the clock, however, I decided that if we’re going to eat at anything like a reasonable hour, I must get the damn casserole in the oven. I figured the more-done eggs would firm up while the casserole is baking. Or not. But I just don’t care at this point.
So, are my first batch o’ eggs salvagable? I’m thinking not at this point, since they were cooked and cooled well over an hour ago. Surely they’re bacteria ridden timebombs by now. But what about right after I took them out of the water? Could I have popped the opened one back in and brought the water back to a boil? Or is this indeed an exercise in folly?
Now, I know you can’t fix a man when he’s wrong, You can’t put back a petal when it falls from the flower (without a hot glue gun, anyway), and most definitely cannot sweeten up a fella when he starts turnin’ sour (unless you have beer and porn), but what about my poor eggses?
If they’ve warmed but not cooked, and then cooled, the only truly safe option is to bin them. Sorry. You could half-salvage something vagulely edible, but however you did it there’d be a small risk of something, ummm, less-than-edible.
As for if they’re straight out the water, and if it’s just a bit of liquid on the inside that needs finishing, I’d pour it into a dish and give it 10 seconds on a low microwave setting.
Nonsense, you have a 4 hour window of opportunity to deal with food. The egg is sterile going into the cooking process, and can even be safely left out of the cooler if they are coated with parafin [wax, not the liquid used as a fuel…US has a different usage of parrafin that britaun FYI] for longer than a week if they are kept in a relatively mellow place [not in direct sunlight, in the shade and hopefully sheltered a but, less than 80 degrees fahrenheit is best.]
If they have been on the counter for a couple hours, just pop them into a small baking dish and nuke them. I would eat them fairly soon, like tonight or tomorrow morning, [of course refrigerate them after cooking if you dont eat them immediately] but most people are seriously overanal about microbes.
I guess boys will be boys…and sometimes men will be boys * :rolleyes: