eggs - best to keep in the fridge?

martinbliss

Eggs can be kept wherever you like depending on your preference, the advantage of keeping them in the fridge is that they'll be safe to eat a few days after there bb date.

Egg shells are surprisingly quite porous so when you store them in a closed unit like a fridge, they can actually absorb some of the 'smells' coming from other foods in the fridge. I watched James Martin do this intentionally to make 'truffle eggs' but putting eggs and truffles together in a closed jar for 24 hours, when they are cooked you can actually alter the taste of the eggs.

Based on this, I usually keep eggs out of the fridge but won't make any difference if there is nothing especially 'smelly' in the fridge like fish or something similar

Hope that helps

Sasha1234

I ate pancakes which contained an egg in that was 4 days out of date, I won't be ill will I?

Evil_Olive

Sasha1234 wrote: »

I ate pancakes which contained an egg in that was 4 days out of date, I won't be ill will I?

extremely unlikely use by dates usually have a built in safety margin of at least a few days in my experience. Dunno when you ate them, but I believe that most types of food poisoning make themselves known fairly quickly - if you were going to be ill, you probably would know it by now (A friend of mine once started exhibiting rather violent symptoms of food poisoning halfway through the meal that caused it - wasn't nice )

I keep my eggs in the fridge because I've found they fry and poach much better if they are very cold - the white is thicker and stays together better instead of running all over the pan or through the poaching water (a few drops if vinegar in the water helps with this as well).
When I boil them I start with cold water which avoids the cracking problem.

I don't have to worry about them being room temp for baking because I am a terrible baker and try to avoid it - bread, cakes, even pastry I am useless at, though people tell me I'm an excellent cook outside the baking arena -
I blame it on my oven - it's a tiny cheap 'rental property' appliance - it can't even do oven chips evenly and one day they'll burn after 10 minutes when the next day they'll still be hard in the middle after 20 :mad:

I regularly use eggs up to 2 months after purchase - dunno whether keeping them in the fridge helps with this - I do keep my fridge very cold.

Wig wrote: »

I put mine in the fridge, point side up will be because there is a cusion inside the egg at the round end, must have something to do with it.

ScoobieGirl wrote: »

It says on the pack I bought this week to store in the fridge POINT SIDE UP!
What's that all about?

Well that's all very odd!
I thought the prevailing wisdom was to store point DOWN because the airspace (cushion) needs to be at the top so that it can expand as the egg ages and releases gases - has that changed, or has someone at the packaging printing place made a massive boobie?
The eggs are always point down in the box when you buy them......

I don't think anyone's mentioned the freshness test yet?
The airspace can help you tell how fresh an egg is because it expands as the egg gets older and makes the egg float more.
Pop the egg (still in it's shell) into a glass jug or bowl of water.
1) Sinks right to the bottom - very fresh indeed, probably still warm from the chicken's bum
2) hangs around somewhere in the middle - fine
3) floats right to the top - too old to use
Although in my own personal universe, number 3) has been modified to: 'crack into a mug to check it looks and smells OK before tipping into the recipe/pan'

Fascinated by the Yachtsman's trick of oiling the eggs to make them last longer - never knew that

Farway

Evil_Olive wrote: »

3) floats right to the top - too old to use
Although in my own personal universe, number 3) has been modified to: 'crack into a mug to check it looks and smells OK before tipping into the recipe/pan'

Agree with this, if you crack it into a cup and start gagging it is beyond use by date, otherwise fine to eat

Nargleblast

Eggs from our chickens are stored on the kitchen worktop, the occasional shop eggs are stored in the fridge, as they are bound to be older than home laid eggs. Never wash the shell of a new laid egg because it removes the natural protective coating and means it will not keep as long as normal. Our home produced eggs are always used up within a week of being laid.