Pickled Eggs

[Mick F]

Commercially, how do they peel the shells of the hard-boiled eggs?

Personally speaking, the idea of pickled eggs in white vinegar you see for sale in pubs and chipshops etc look completely unappetising in the extreme.

Mrs Mick F makes wonderful pickled onions and she makes jar-loads every autumn and they sell well locally too.
We eat very few of them, and yesterday I finished off the last on in an August 2017 jar.

I hard-boiled four eggs earlier, and after they cooled, I spent fifteen minutes peeling them, and then they'll be put into the spiced malt vinegar that the pickled onions were in. Leave them a week or so, and they are yummy!!!

If it took me fifteen minutes to peal four eggs, how do they do it commercially?

[Jdsk]

If it took me fifteen minutes to peal four eggs, how do they do it commercially?

Jonathan

PS: Is Pedant Mode on? : - )

[Audax67]

Skinless chickens.

[Jdsk]

What's the bird? And why is the egg so big?

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

My local has a large jar of pickled eggs next to the basket of crisps. The habit, nation-wide I imagine, is to buy one of each and pop the egg in with the crisps, when it is referred to as "chicken and chips"...

[rjb]

My first job at 16 (1968) was a school summer holiday job at the local Bowyer's pie factory in Plymouth. Every Friday morning I had a 6.00 am start and my job was to transfer several hundred eggs which had just been delivered into a wire basket which was then dunked into a vat of boiling water for 4 minutes. The boiling water was drained off and refilled with cold. I then had to shell all the eggs into a large steel tub. The tedious part was transferring the eggs by hand into the basket without breaking any. Took me about 4 hours in total.
The eggs were destined for Gala Pies. How did they stop the eggs blackening you ask? They bleached them with a phial of Hydrogen Peroxide added to the tub. The Foreman supervising me would take the empty phial home to his wife who washed her hair in the rinsed out container. She was Platinum Blonde. nothing wasted, even the eggs shells went back to the hens for recycling.

[Vetus Ossa]

My first job at 16 (1968) was a school summer holiday job at the local Bowyer's pie factory in Plymouth. Every Friday morning I had a 6.00 am start and my job was to transfer several hundred eggs which had just been delivered into a wire basket which was then dunked into a vat of boiling water for 4 minutes. The boiling water was drained off and refilled with cold. I then had to shell all the eggs into a large steel tub. The tedious part was transferring the eggs by hand into the basket without breaking any. Took me about 4 hours in total.
The eggs were destined for Gala Pies. How did they stop the eggs blackening you ask? They bleached them with a phial of Hydrogen Peroxide added to the tub. The Foreman supervising me would take the empty phial home to his wife who washed her hair in the rinsed out container. She was Platinum Blonde. nothing wasted, even the eggs shells went back to the hens for recycling.

gala-pie-with-egg.jpg

My mother and niece worked there at about that time

[kylecycler]

My first job at 16 (1968) was a school summer holiday job at the local Bowyer's pie factory in Plymouth. Every Friday morning I had a 6.00 am start and my job was to transfer several hundred eggs which had just been delivered into a wire basket which was then dunked into a vat of boiling water for 4 minutes. The boiling water was drained off and refilled with cold. I then had to shell all the eggs into a large steel tub. The tedious part was transferring the eggs by hand into the basket without breaking any. Took me about 4 hours in total.
The eggs were destined for Gala Pies. How did they stop the eggs blackening you ask? They bleached them with a phial of Hydrogen Peroxide added to the tub. The Foreman supervising me would take the empty phial home to his wife who washed her hair in the rinsed out container. She was Platinum Blonde. nothing wasted, even the eggs shells went back to the hens for recycling.

I've had nothing to eat today, just a couple of coffees - I'm away out to buy a pork pie!

[Mick F]

Wonderful stories from Plymouth eh?

For my four eggs, they were boiled for ten minutes, lifted out and left on a plate in the front porch for two or three hours to cool.
Then, I set about peeling the shells. Quite fiddly without damaging the surface of the egg itself.

Quick factoid.
Brown eggs are the norm in supermarkets, and they like them brown because the shells are harder and more resilient than white eggs. When I was a youngster, we bought our eggs from the local farms, and they were white eggs ......... all of them.
Brown hens tend to lay brown eggs, and white hens tend to lay white eggs.

Could it be that hard-boiled white eggs peel easier than hard-boiled brown eggs because the shells are thinner?

[Bonefishblues]

Wonderful stories from Plymouth eh?

For my four eggs, they were boiled for ten minutes, lifted out and left on a plate in the front porch for two or three hours to cool.
Then, I set about peeling the shells. Quite fiddly without damaging the surface of the egg itself.

Quick factoid.
Brown eggs are the norm in supermarkets, and they like them brown because the shells are harder and more resilient than white eggs. When I was a youngster, we bought our eggs from the local farms, and they were white eggs ......... all of them.
Brown hens tend to lay brown eggs, and white hens tend to lay white eggs.

Could it be that hard-boiled white eggs peel easier than hard-boiled brown eggs because the shells are thinner?

I don't think that's the case - it's because in the UK brown eggs are identified as being more desirable than white, simply because that's what the consumer thinks. North America is exactly the reverse, so that's what the egg producers deliver.

[Mick F]

It is the case.

Yes, people think that brown eggs are nicer.

Story on the radio some months back discussing this white/brown issue. Can't remember the R4 prog. Could have been Kitchen Cabinet ......... and during a war sometime - WW1 or WW2? the steward/batman/servant of a high ranking officer would paint the white eggs with tea to make than brown so the officer thought the eggs were brown.

On the prog, it was explained about the shell thickness and resilience, and how brown eggs are more desirable to some people, and how the eggs travel better and suffer from fewer breakages. Win-win situation.

Next time you get a white egg - and they are available if you can find them, and crack one into the frying pan, and also a brown one, see the difference in crack-ability. It's amazing to see and feel.

[Bonefishblues]

Can you find a source for that Mick - I think you're wrong, and certainly never heard that whilst I worked in the sector.

The only difference is between younger and older hens, where the former produce thicker shells.
Lots of sources for that info:

https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-dif ... uth-113678
https://www.mvorganizing.org/what-is-th ... and-brown/

Amongst many.

[Vetus Ossa]

Wonderful stories from Plymouth eh?

For my four eggs, they were boiled for ten minutes, lifted out and left on a plate in the front porch for two or three hours to cool.
Then, I set about peeling the shells. Quite fiddly without damaging the surface of the egg itself.

Quick factoid.
Brown eggs are the norm in supermarkets, and they like them brown because the shells are harder and more resilient than white eggs. When I was a youngster, we bought our eggs from the local farms, and they were white eggs ......... all of them.
Brown hens tend to lay brown eggs, and white hens tend to lay white eggs.

Could it be that hard-boiled white eggs peel easier than hard-boiled brown eggs because the shells are thinner?

Removing shell from eggs is pretty easy if you give them a good tap on your worktop, no picking fiddly little bits off involved, it leaves a nice clean egg.

[axel_knutt]

There are two types of hard boiled egg, those that peel like the ones in the video, and the ones have the membrane stuck fast to the white. With those you have to faff around picking off fragments of shell the size of rice grains and sugar granules, then try to peel the membrane off without pulling off a layer of white with it.
They're a PITA.

[rjb]

My first job at 16 (1968) was a school summer holiday job at the local Bowyer's pie factory in Plymouth. Every Friday morning I had a 6.00 am start and my job was to transfer several hundred eggs which had just been delivered into a wire basket which was then dunked into a vat of boiling water for 4 minutes. The boiling water was drained off and refilled with cold. I then had to shell all the eggs into a large steel tub. The tedious part was transferring the eggs by hand into the basket without breaking any. Took me about 4 hours in total.
The eggs were destined for Gala Pies. How did they stop the eggs blackening you ask? They bleached them with a phial of Hydrogen Peroxide added to the tub. The Foreman supervising me would take the empty phial home to his wife who washed her hair in the rinsed out container. She was Platinum Blonde. nothing wasted, even the eggs shells went back to the hens for recycling.

gala-pie-with-egg.jpg

My mother and niece worked there at about that time

Do they remember me! Or my brother in law now, John Putt.
I worked there for 3 summer's. The foreman I referred to above was a speedway fan. After the eggs i was on the end of the pork pie line. I had a 4 pronged hammer to puncture the lid of the pie before stacking them on trays and preparing them to be wheeled into the oven. Never eaten a pork pie again since I worked there.