Eggs are relatively common, whether you cook, scramble, or add them to your favorite dishes. But what if you suddenly stumble on a jelly-like egg after cracking it. You might wonder why this is so.
The egg whites become a jelly-like substance when an egg is frozen in its shell, making it difficult to blend. Although the texture of the eggs isn’t ideal, they are still totally safe to eat. We experience this every winter if we don’t harvest the eggs quickly enough, and it’s irritating because you can’t know if the eggs were frozen without shattering them.
Do Eggs Need To Be Kept Chilled?
Eggs generally have a long shelf life. This is because of the barrier that keeps dirt and germs from penetrating the pores of the eggshell and the protective layer that covers them.
To prevent hazardous bacteria from proliferating, eggs in Canada must be refrigerated after thorough washing, eliminating this coating. This layer isn’t wiped off in many other nations in Europe and South America, so their eggs are frequently served at room temperature.
How To Identify A Good Egg?
Various methods determine when it’s appropriate to compost your eggs.
A Gray Egg White Should Be Avoided
Fresh, new eggs will have thick, hazy whites that closely enclose the yolk and vivid orange yolks. When you poach or fry old eggs, they won’t stay in a neat little package; the whites will seem weak and watery and spread widely in the pan, and the yolk will be flat and more likely to break.
This only means that the egg isn’t at its best; it doesn’t mean it’s terrible. If you’re unsure of the age or freshness of the eggs, crack them into a separate bowl first.
The Egg Smells
Use your nose to identify rotten eggs. The smell indicates that the eggs have gone wrong because hydrogen sulfide gas builds up inside them as they age and degrade. Throw away any eggs that give off this odor right away.
Perform a Float Test
The float test is the simplest method for determining whether an egg is rotten or old before breaking it open. Put the egg in the water-filled glass. Rotten eggs will float, whereas fresh eggs will sink to the bottom. (And ought to be discarded.) The egg is older but safe to cook with and eat if it falls but rests with the broader end facing up.
Why Is A Floating Egg Bad?
Eggs naturally decompose as they age, resulting in gas being produced inside the egg. This gas can evaporate through the eggshell’s pores, making the egg lighter. The egg will float once enough gas has been removed to make it more delicate than the water. Eggs past their best-by date may still contain gas bubbles that haven’t yet evaporated, which is why they may be floating “bottoms-up” in the water.
How To Properly Store Eggs
- Store eggs in the refrigerator’s body rather than the door to keep them at a constant chilly temperature.
- Keep eggs in their carton to protect them from deterioration and keep them from absorbing the flavors of other meals in the fridge.
- For up to a week, hard-boiled eggs can be kept in the refrigerator in a well-closed container.
- The remaining yolks or whites can be kept in the refrigerator for 2-4 days in a sealed container.
- Egg dishes that have been prepared (quiches, frittatas, scrambles) can be kept in the fridge for 3–4 days.
Egg Whites can be Kept Frozen for up to 12 Months
Whites and entire raw eggs should be beaten only until combined before being frozen in a container that is tightly sealed. According to The Chatelaine Kitchen, egg yolks shouldn’t be frozen since they turn a little gelatinous and behave differently when cooked and baked.
Egg whites and whole hard-cooked eggs shouldn’t be frozen because doing so makes them mushy and watery.
How To Check If Egg Is Bad
Do you have the ability to spot a bad apple? Most likely not. It can be difficult to distinguish one egg from another unless the thin shell has a noticeable crack down the side (more likely from handling than from aging). To avoid squandering an entire batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, there is a way to test your eggs before cracking them.
The Sniff Test
The nose has its moments. There shouldn’t be much of an odor coming from a cracked egg. They ought to generally have a neutral odor. An egg that has gone bad frequently has an overtly unpleasant sulfur-scented stench like a nasty swamp or natural gas.
Why does this smell like sulfur? Proteins globulin and keratin are abundant in eggs. A potent sulfide gas called hydrogen sulfide was released when globulin decayed. Cysteine is a plentiful amino acid in the protein keratin. Because cysteine contains many sulfur atoms, it is released when keratin is broken down, and the sulfur atoms help give off the rotting stench.
No matter what you think it smells like, throw away an egg if you crack it, and it has a decidedly unpleasant smell. An uncooked, nutritious egg shouldn’t smell.
Hardness
The egg yolk and white will be hard in a healthy, fresh egg. It is firm enough to resemble a gelatinous substance that can maintain its shape. The yolk will be perfectly rounded and sit high. It will seem like the whites are dense.
The whites and yolks of an egg lose firmness as it ages. Both the yolk and the white egg might become runny. Check the sell-by and pack dates on the carton if you believe your cracked eggs are too watery.
An egg is not necessarily terrible just because it has gotten a little older. The eggs are probably still good to consume as long as the carton indicates that they are still within a healthy age range and there is no smell or discoloration. Expiration dates will be covered in more detail below.
Decoloration
Discoloration in the egg can be brought on by bacterial growth. If the yolk or whites exhibit any strange coloring, such as pink, blue, black, or green, this may signify bacterial growth, and the egg should probably be thrown out. Occasionally, other elements can alter egg color without harming the egg, but to be safe, I wouldn’t recommend eating anything that isn’t typically colored.
Egg whites appear cloudier while young and more apparent over time. The carbon dioxide that hasn’t yet left the shell is causing cloudiness. The CO2 escapes through the cover more and more as time goes on, making the whites look more distinct. Therefore, a gray egg white indicates that it is pretty fresh.
Depending on the chickens’ food, there can be some variation in what the “correct” hue of egg yolks should be. Her yolks might be yellow or just a little bit pale if she was consuming a lot of yellow foods, like corn or wheat. But her yolks could be a more profound, orange-yellow color if she has finished other vegetables with somewhat darker pigments.
Therefore, there is no need to be concerned if you chance to crack a batch of eggs and the yolks appear darker or lighter than your last carton.
Cooking-related Discoloration
If you enjoy eating hard-boiled eggs, you might occasionally find that the cooked yolk has developed a dark, discolored ring. This results from a reaction between the iron and sulfur in the egg yolks and whites.
It usually happens if the eggs have been cooked for an excessively long time or at a high temperature. You can reduce this response by lowering the water temperature and rapidly cooling the eggs after cooking. The eggs are still safe to consume despite this mild issue.
The hue of scrambled eggs can also turn green or grey. The color is due to chemical reactions between the chemicals in the egg or between the egg and the iron in the pan it was cooked in, and these are still safe to consume. If this keeps occurring, you might want to experiment with the pan you’re using or the heat and cook time you’re using.
Checking The Dates
Checking the expiration date will help you decide whether to keep or throw away your eggs if you think something is wrong with them. There may be several dates and digits on a carton, and knowing what they signify might help you avoid throwing out perfectly delicious eggs.
Sell Before: Most cartons will have a sell-by date even if it is not needed. The length of time that the store should sell the eggs is indicated by this date. Typically, 20 to 30 days have passed since the eggs were packed. The sell-by date on eggs could not be more than 30 days old if packaged in a USDA-inspected facility. This does not imply that the eggs won’t be safe to consume on day 31. It’s to ensure that after you get your eggs home, you have ample time to use them.
Expiration Date: The “best if used by” date, often known as the “expiration date,” is commonly written as being 30 days after the pack date and contains the exact details as the “sell by” date. However, this can change, and lately, I have noticed “best by” dates about 44 days beyond the pack date.
The carton will have a number between 001 and 365 that denotes the day of the year the eggs were graded and packed if the eggs are from a USDA-inspected facility. The Julian Date uses a system of numbers where 001 represents January 1st, and 365 represents December 31st. Since terms like “sell by” and “best by” can have different meanings, this is the date on which you should base your estimates.
Hiiii! My name is Ruth and I am an experienced chef with a passion for food and cooking. My love of baking began when I was nine, and I have since been refining my skills in the kitchen ever since.
