If you’re like me, you probably buy 72 eggs per week. And if you’re like me, there are those odd days where between your two roommates and you, you don’t quite eat 10 eggs per day. It happens to the best of us. But even though you rotate your eggs every week, putting the new ones at the back and the old ones at the front, eventually (i.e. before the term ends), you have a dozen eggs in your fridge that are getting to the one-month mark. So what are you to do?
The smart-asses among you might ask why we don’t just buy 12 less eggs next week. Well, Mr. Pain-in-my-Rear, you must be a moneybags as well as a kindred spirit. Have you ever tried buying half-a-dozen dozens of eggs? It’s expensive. Not to mention that you then have to take home 6 separate fairly-fragile food items, along with all your other foodstuff. No. The only reasonable way to buy 72 eggs is in two 36-egg pallets from Costco. But seeing as you get a surplus of 12 eggs per month, by the time you can skip buying a pallet of eggs, the oldest eggs will be 3 months old.
Anyway, I digress. Through no fault of your own, nor mismanagement of your resources, nor failing to see an apparently obvious (though retrospectively idiotic) solution, you have a surplus of eggs. And, in particular, you have old eggs. What are you to do with them? Never fear! I am here to help you out of this mess!
As always, no measuring, no buying new ingredients (except eggs, I suppose), and no giving up.
The first thing to know about eggs is that they are delicious. The second thing to know about eggs is that they peel most easily when they are older. So get some old eggs. What if you don’t have any? Well get some and sit on them for a week like a proud mother hen. It’s not like I’ve spent most of the first part of this article explaining how you might happen across eggs that are on the verge of spoiling.
So put your eggs in a pot and fill the pot with water until the eggs are more-or-less covered. The honest truth is that no one knows how to properly hard-boil an egg, and you just get good at it.
There is one cheat to know if your eggs are done. As you undoubtedly know if you’ve taken Fluids 2 (I think most people take it in 1B or something), fluids do not stop instantaneously. So if you were to, say, spin an egg like a top, the fluid inside would spin. And if you were then to momentarily stop the egg, the fluid would keep spinning. It’s now just a simple application of the fluid-shear law to see that the egg will start to turn again when you release it. But if there’s no fluid inside, the egg won’t spin which means it’s done.
Once you’ve cooked your eggs, get to the task of peeling them all. I would highly recommend rinsing each egg as you finish to get rid of any small shrapnel of shell that you may have missed. (If only that worked so well with actual shells and shrapnel in post-war Europe.) Now cut each egg in half and scoop out the yoke. Put it into the bowl. If you seriously just dumped all your egg yokes into the garbage can, please send pictures. I will howl in laughter and start calling you a dumb-ass instead.
To the egg yokes add paprika, mayonnaise, diced red onion, other spices, cheese, or your favourite comfort food. Mix it all together. Then use a spoon to scoop large helpings of the yoke concoction back into the yoke-hole in the egg white, which I presume you were smart enough to not throw out.
Once you are done, sprinkle more paprika onto the eggs. I also like to add a garnish like parsley, ghost peppers, or crushed M&Ms. Refrigerate until cool, then eat! It’s a great party dish, particularly for barbeques. I particularly like to have them as a morning snack after first class.
Author’s note: In the pursuit of journalistic integrity, it should be noted that the idea that my roommates and I eat 72 eggs a week is hyperbole. In truth, it generally takes us nearly two weeks to go through that many.
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