I’ve not seen them in the Chicagoland area – or at least I don’t remember seeing them around here – but whenever I visit my in-laws in Harrisburg, PA, all the grocery stores around there seem to have them, packed in plastic like this:
I live in Chicago too and I have not seen them either. Which is odd since the city has/had a sizeable German immigrant population (not the biggest but still plenty). Pickled eggs, I think, are a traditional German food.
Of course, I may be overlooking pickled eggs and they are for sale in Chicago. I remember seeing them in big jars in delis but traditional delis are (sadly) mostly gone these days (although there is still a good one not far form where I live but no pickled eggs that I remember).
Our nearby farm market sells various “flavors”. We always have a jar of the jalapeño pickled eggs on hand. They’re pretty hot!
Jake&Amos is the brand we get.
Freshness is a factor, too. When we kept chickens we’d age eggs destined to be hard boiled for a week or so in the refrigerator.
For years I had no problem peeling eggs. Crack them all over, rub them between my hands then hold the egg under running water and the shell would come right off. Starting a couple of years ago that stopped working as well. I plunge the eggs in ice water when they are done and avoid new eggs but either I changed or the eggs did. Before, one tough egg in a dozen, or less, was my expectation. Now, I’m not surprised if half or more are a problem.
I noticed the same thing. That’s when I tried steaming them, which works much better.
I steam mine and the peeling is almost always a cinch (once in a while there is a difficult one).
FWIW I do not use a steaming basket (I would if I had one but I don’t have one). So, just 3/4" of water in a saucepan, boil and put the eggs in and cover (I usually reduce the heat a little…still enough to boil the water but not blasting it with heat…gas stove so heat change is instant). Cook 11 minutes and into ice water for the eggs.
I do not know if it matters but I buy the happy chicken eggs. They cost more (a fair bit more) but I don’t eat eggs so much that the cost is onerous and I don’t want eggs from those massive chicken warehouses. Whether happy chickens produce “better” eggs I cannot say but they work well for me.
I buy the unhappy cheap eggs and they peel fine.
There is a border issue here. The brands available in the US I never see here in Canada, and the Strub’s variety I get here I believe is only sold in Canada.
In any case, I must thank you again for mentioning pickled eggs. The Strub’s ones are delicious and even better than whatever kind it was that I remembered from the distant past. They have exactly the texture of properly homemade hard-boiled eggs, and retain much of the same flavour, differing only in the additional kick of the vinegary pickling juice, which turns out to be very pleasantly compatible with eggs. In fact, since I ran out last night, I hard-boiled some fresh eggs, peeled them, and plunked them into the leftover pickle juice. As mentioned before, I would be cautious about home-pickling eggs as a preservation method, but these are not going to be around more than a couple of days.
USD $8.99 for that large jar is pretty good. Strub’s is CAD $5.99 for a small jar of just six eggs. But fresh raw eggs are expensive now, too – around that same price for a dozen large free-run.
Bumped for the peeling of hard boiled egg advice.
Today I tried a hack I saw on YT, and I’m sure I’ve tried them all to get easy peel eggs. Old eggs, salt, vinegar, steaming and plunging.
This new method worked on all 5 white eggs I cooked in the traditional way of bringing a pan of eggs covered with water to a boil. No salt/vinegar nothing but water. Then covering and leaving it sit for 10-12 minutes before rinsing in cold water.
What’s the hack? Before you boil the eggs- Take a raw egg and gently tap it with a spoon or knife, obviously not hard enough to crack it, but you’re listening for sound like a snap from inside the egg. Takes 5-10 taps to get the snap. It’s the sound of separation of the albumen from the shell. TikTok mom suggests tapping the butt end but I didn’t and it still snapped.
The eggs peeled like a dream, the shells just slipped right off after I cracked them. Perfect eggs. Try it!
Once the eggs are outside of the shell and exposed to the air, they get ratty much faster than they would if you hard boiled them yourself and left them in the shell in the fridge. This goes for other supermarket prepared food such as bagged salad. Think about how easy it is to simply boil the eggs yourself. Stop buying that stuff!
I use a teaspoon to crack the egg, knocking it with the convex side, then use the concave side to slide under the shell and lift it off.
I have a friend who - unless he was completely tricking me - took a cold boiled egg, made a hole in the top and the bottom and then raised it to his mouth and blew air into the shell. This cracked the egg, the membrane inside the shell remained intact so he got a peeled egg and a broken eggshell mostly connected. We were hiking at the time so nice to be able to collect the eggshell in one piece to take it away.
Did you include any untapped eggs as a control?
How does that thing make the peeling easier ?
According to the listing :-
- EASY PEELING & CLEANING - No more sticking your fingers in boiling water to peel eggs! The egg steamer comes with a clear lid so you can always keep an eye on the cooking. The included trays and measuring cup are dishwasher safe, for mess-free clean up
… which doesn’t make a lot of sense !
ETA: having read more posts, it seems it’s because they’re
being steamed which somehow makes them easier to peel.
(But that listing description still doesn’t make sense !)
I agree that that makes no sense at all. In both scenarios the eggs are hot at the end and need to cool down. It is a little easier to pull up the tray and run it under a cool faucet than to fish the eggs out of the sauce pan but that’s not the point. The nice thing about it is that the cooking is more foolproof, at least for me.
Incidentally, the eggs peel easily.
Ah !
It’s quite cheap … but unfortunately my kitchen is too small for
any more gadgets !
btw, i’ve never seen pre-boiled eggs here in the UK (except in scotch eggs).
I never really noticed them here until the market was out of eggs (and nearly everything else) one time during the beginning of covid and that was all they had. They were overcooked to my taste and rubbery.
My father-in-law kept chickens. Whenever he killed a hen for the pot, he would keep any unlaid eggs and pickle them. They were small but really good.
In the UK, we can buy a kind of meat pie which is about 6" square and maybe 12" long, with boiled egg all the way along the centre. As a truck driver, I used to deliver boiled and peeled eggs, packed in brine, to a bakery that manufactured these pies for supermarkets to sell by the slice.
I don’t know how, but it does. I bought one a couple of years ago after reading about it here on the Dope. These things are amazing. They are consistent as hell. You can get whatever degree of doneness you desire time after time. While that is great, it’s the peeling bit that makes them so wonderful;. I’m not exaggerating when I say the peels almost slide off. Every time.
It was probably me and I am glad that you love it. I have been evangelizing about them ever since my sister had me get one several years ago and they are only like $15. One of the best value purchases I have ever made.