People are always asking which came first the chicken or the egg.
I just want to know how to crack an egg without getting pieces of the shell in the bowl. And when I do get pieces of shell in the bowl, how do I get them back out?
Chasing that piece of shell around is enough to drive a person to distraction. The only technique that half works for me is to get the piece of shell trapped against the side of the bowl with a spoon and then slowly slide it up to the rim.
It’s a tension filled technique. A lot can go wrong and usually does. The shell can bail off the spoon at any point, but typically it waits until I almost have it to the top and I am ready to claim victory before diving headlong back into the batter; which is why I say it only half works.
At this point there is much spoon waving and flavourful language. I am not a patient person. The world should count its blessings that I didn’t somehow end up a surgeon. Tossing scalpels around the operating room and shouting about stupid hearts that refuse to transplant isn’t the sort of trait one looks for in a doctor.
It’s not something to commend in a cook neither. Even if you’re Gordon Ramsey. Or maybe especially if you’re Gordon Ramsey. Or in anyone for that matter. But enough about character flaws.
I figured there had to be a better way to extract the shell from the mixing bowl. Some neat little household trick like using toothpaste to clean silver or cutting a tiny hole in the corner of a paper bag, dumping freshly popped corn inside and shaking it about so all the unpopped kernels fall out the hole. So off I went to search the internet.
scovered that engineers at the Ohio State University have come up with a patented process to use eggshells to soak up carbon dioxide from a reaction that produces hydrogen fuel.
My interest being more in making muffins that soaking up carbon dioxide, I continued my search. I learned that eggshells can be crushed up and scattered around your garden to keep slugs from gobbling up your greens. The sharp edges keep the slippery slugs from sliding over them. You can also use egg shell halves for starting seedlings — just remember to keep the egg carton for supporting the shells. After sowing seeds in the garden you can sprinkle crushed eggshells on top to mark the row until they sprout.
More searching revealed that when you’re out camping and realize to your great horror that you left the wire wool at home (and who hasn’t) there is no cause for alarm. You can simply toss egg shells into the cooking pot and scrub away. I am going out on a bit of a limb here, but I’m thinking if you ran out of wire wool at home the egg shells wouldn’t know that you weren’t in the woods and would still scrub the crud off your pots.
I found out that placing crushed eggshells in with the coffee grounds produces a smoother and less acidic tasting brew. Could that be Tim Horton’s secret? Detailed instructions included baking the shells in the oven at 350 F for 10 minutes, then crushing them and storing in an airtight container. Add one teaspoon to every batch of coffee.
I am pretty sure I have five hens and six roosters from the 11 chicks I hatched out this spring. Since they’re still too young to either crow or lay an egg I can’t say for sure. Five hens might not seem like a lot but when you consider that each one will lay an egg almost every day that works out to two and a half dozen a week, 10 dozen a month or 1,440 eggs a year. That’s a whole lot of egg shells.
I am happy through my searching to have discovered all kinds of things to do with egg shells, but I still haven’t found a quick and easy way to get a broken egg shell out of the batter. So I am turning it over to you, dear reader. Surely someone out there has stumbled upon the secret and is generous enough to share it. The first answer that works gets a free rooster. . .whether you want one or not.
Shannon McKinnon is a Canadian humour columnist. You can read past columns by dropping by shannonmckinnon.com