Hard-boiled egg question

[tammay]

Allright, this is another one of those funky questions that has you wasting time at work to try and figure out ;)

I'm actually asking this for my sister who is also LCing - she's made breakfast easy by preparing egg salad the night before and taking it to work. She boils a massive amount of them on the weekend (about 20, yikes!). Problem is, when she peels them, they end up with most of the egg peeled with it. She gets pretty upset about this. She's tried boiling them a long time (last time she boiled them 2 hours!) and short time (20 minutes) and nothing seems to help. I heard that when the egg comes off the peel like that it means the eggs are very fresh. Anyone have any ideas how to avoid this?

I'm thinking it might be that she's boiling too many at one time but that's just my take on it.

Thanks!
Tam

[Karen]

If an egg is too fresh, the egg will stick to the shell. Here is how to from the Canadian Egg Marketing Board (http://www.canadaegg.ca/english/index.html). It's a great site, filled with recipes.

Hard Cooked Eggs

Eggs
Water

Place cold eggs in a single layer in a saucepan. Cover with at least 1 inch (2.5 cm) cold water over top of the eggs. Cover saucepan and bring quickly to a boil over a high heat. Immediately remove pan from heat to stop boiling. Let eggs stand in water for 20 to 25 minutes. Drain water and immediately run cold water over eggs until cooled.

Tips

Use eggs that have been in the refrigerator the longest because the less fresh the egg, the easier it is to peel.

Before cooking, prick large end of eggs with a pin to prevent them from cracking.

Cool eggs quickly once the cooking time is up by placing in cold water. Rapid cooling helps prevent a green ring from forming around the yolk.

Peel eggs soon after cooking and cooling.

Keep a supply of hard-cooked eggs in your refrigerator for a breakfast on the run.

To determine whether an egg is hard-cooked, spin it. If it spins round and round, it is hard-cooked.

Use hard-cooked eggs within one week.

To peel hard-cooked eggs, crackle shell then roll egg between your hands to loosen. Begin peeling at the large end. Hold under cold running water or dip in a bowl of water to help ease off the shell.