Eggselent.

January 5, 2011 2:37 PM

How (and how not) to make an omelette inside the eggshell.
posted by Evilspork (39 comments total)

They're 10% of the way there! Now they just need to figure out how someone would manage to eat an omelette cooked inside an eggshell.
posted by gurple at 2:42 PM on January 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

"All of these factors point towards what might be an obvious solution to some: to cook the eggs in water at reduced temperature, sealed in plastic bags under vacuum."

Oh, oviously.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:45 PM on January 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

I wonder how many times a hen has played this trick on a farmer.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:46 PM on January 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

"They're 10% of the way there! Now they just need to figure out how someone would manage to eat an omelette cooked inside an eggshell."

With a reverse-engineered inside-out straw, of course.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:47 PM on January 5, 2011

Tsk. Theypuncture the eggs.
posted by Artw at 2:48 PM on January 5, 2011

Jeez. Two links in one day where someone is probably emailing Stross....
posted by Thistledown at 2:57 PM on January 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Tsk. They puncture the eggs.

Who said they didn't? ;)
posted by Evilspork at 3:07 PM on January 5, 2011

oviously

Or perhaps.... ovulously.













YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 3:24 PM on January 5, 2011 [7 favorites]

The question this makes me ask is... what freaky chicken lays eggs so white? Every other egg I have ever seen is some shade of brown
posted by foleypt at 3:39 PM on January 5, 2011

American eggs are almost always white-shelled. Don't know why.

(I'm originally British and eggs back there are, as you say, almost always brown-shelled.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:51 PM on January 5, 2011

So, basically they're duplicating the work of Ron Popeil from 30 years ago.
posted by hippybear at 3:53 PM on January 5, 2011

Egg Shell Colors, on Wikipedia:

Egg shell color is caused by pigment deposition during egg formation in the oviduct and can vary according to species and breed, from the more common white or brown to pink or speckled blue-green. In general, chicken breeds with white ear lobes lay white eggs, whereas chickens with red ear lobes lay brown eggs.

And in this paragraph, I learned two things: 1) a general standard for egg color in chickens, and 2) chickens have ear lobes.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:13 PM on January 5, 2011 [13 favorites]

The obvious question is: why? In the time it takes for them to screw around with this, I've cooked breakfast (bacon, eggs, toast) for the family and served it.
Over-thinking a plate of... eggs?
posted by Old'n'Busted at 4:28 PM on January 5, 2011

Yeah, when I want an omelet I want one now, not in 30-40 minutes (or more, including pre-prep). Also, I'm in no condition to be handling delicate eggshells, syringes, etc. before breakfast - that's a messy disaster in the making. Hell, I can't even pronounce "sous vide" before coffee....
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:38 PM on January 5, 2011

If I don't get to dunk it into liquid nitrogen or crispify it with my butane torch, fugetaboutit.
posted by prinado at 4:53 PM on January 5, 2011

. . .chicken breeds with white ear lobes lay white eggs, . . .


Chicken ear lobes.
posted by nola at 5:35 PM on January 5, 2011

The wonders of modern life.
posted by zennie at 5:36 PM on January 5, 2011

You know, I once showed a whole class full of undergrads that chickens have earlobes. With live chickens. They weren't impressed. Maybe I shouldn't have done the chicken hypnosis first.
posted by zennie at 5:37 PM on January 5, 2011

foleypt : what freaky chicken lays eggs so white? Every other egg I have ever seen is some shade of brown
We had a deal, Kyle : American eggs are almost always white-shelled.

Growing up in New England, I can still remember the commercials (complete with the accompanying music):

"Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh!"

My family would buy white eggs exactly once per year - For making dyed Easter eggs. And I remember once asking my mother something along the lines of "do they bleach them to make them like that?"

But yeah, the rest of the US seems to prefer their eggs as light as possible. Always freaks me out, just for a moment, when I go on vacation.
posted by pla at 5:37 PM on January 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you shake an egg vigorously enough it will scramble in-shell.

I used to do this to entire dozen lots just to watch my mom freak out.
For some reason this was hilarious to 8 year old me.

If only I'd thought of injecting new things into the shell to make her faint.
posted by artof.mulata at 5:45 PM on January 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

DO NOT WANT
posted by preparat at 6:48 PM on January 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Inside the Shell Electric Egg Scrambler from Ronco. Alas, no longer seems to be for sale.
posted by adamg at 7:12 PM on January 5, 2011

Hey, hippybear: that was the first thing I thought of, too. We watched too much TV back then, didn't we?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:13 PM on January 5, 2011

Part of it may be too much television, but the product (along with dozens of others by Ronco) has been burned permanently into my mind by absorbing this while playing the album on endless repeat when it first came out.
posted by hippybear at 7:28 PM on January 5, 2011

IN SOVIET RUSSIA THE 4 DIMENSIONAL EGGCUBE COOKS YOU!
posted by blue_beetle at 7:29 PM on January 5, 2011

Speaking of which, there seem to have been two different commercials for that product.

It's a great christmas gift!
posted by hippybear at 7:35 PM on January 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

I like a good experiment-for-its-own-sake project as much as the next guy, but I think this one goes back in the drawer. Besides being wildly inconvenient to eat, they have the added bonus of looking hideous!
posted by penduluum at 8:55 PM on January 5, 2011

Too long; didn't eat.
posted by Fuego at 9:17 PM on January 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

In one of the latest stings, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) uncovered the process behind the making of fake eggs - a persistent practice that is dangerous because of the chemicals used.

Local media followed up with reports of rampant Do-It-Yourself DVDs being sold online that provide 'lessons' on how to make fake eggs. The disks are sold for 500 yuan (S$100) each.
posted by infini at 9:42 PM on January 5, 2011

I think I have found a new example to illustrate the principle of "The very fact that nobody has done something before does not make that thing intrinsically a great idea or even a good one"
posted by tehloki at 9:43 PM on January 5, 2011

How to slice a banana before it is peeled
posted by twoleftfeet at 10:24 PM on January 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, when I want an omelet I want one now, not in 30-40 minutes (or more, including pre-prep).

You don't do this for yourself, you do it for the ladies, wait, never-mind, they won't be impressed, trying too hard, wonky.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:49 PM on January 5, 2011

Eggs used to be white in the UK too (up to the sixties or even seventies? I'm not sure). As I understand it (not well), brown ones somehow came to be regarded as a premium version; but since brown ones presumably don't cost any more to produce the result was that they all ended up being brown. At least I surmise that was what happened. My mother still believes that they feed the hens artificial colouring to produce brown shells.
posted by Segundus at 1:21 AM on January 6, 2011

IN SOVIET RUSSIA THE 4 DIMENSIONAL EGGCUBE COOKS YOU!
posted by blue_beetle at 7:29 PM on January 5 [+] [!]


No, no, no. All wrong. Allow me to demonstrate:

In Soviet Russia, egg scrambles you.
posted by kcds at 5:19 AM on January 6, 2011

Too much effort for some tasty eggs.
posted by eyeheartyou at 6:24 AM on January 6, 2011

MetaFilter: (Also, that leakage is edible.)
posted by Splunge at 8:10 AM on January 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

We used to just poke holes in an egg with a nutpick. Of course, we were also poking a hole in each end and then blowing the contents into a bowl for use, so maybe it was ok to have a larger hole in the shell than for these purposed. (This was for making easter eggs. For a month or so before Easter, we'd make eggs this way and keep the shells. Then we'd dye the shells and hang them around as decorations. We liked scrambled eggs better than boiled and, also, it's easier to hang a shell than a whole boiled egg.)
posted by Karmakaze at 11:05 AM on January 6, 2011

Maybe it's just my big American gut talking, but an omelette in ONE egg (sure, fancy because it's still in the shell), doesn't sound as impressively appealing to me as the common "three egg omelette". I mean, I guess, you could just eat three of the omelette in a shell omlettes...but I don't know, my belly eye will feel a little underwhelmed unless I see a veritable egg massacre quivering in a mass of broken chicken futures that could have been on my plate.
posted by kkokkodalk at 11:16 AM on January 6, 2011

You can make a delicious, two- or three-egg omelet in the microwave in less than a minute or so, with a lot less fuss.

I can't help thinking that REAL science nerds would have at least tried a centrifuge to scramble the egg in the shell, though.
posted by misha at 2:46 PM on January 6, 2011