Wednesday, January 17, 2007

The Smart Egg


I can't decided if this is neat or strange. According to the UK's Times Online, the self-timing egg will become available in Britain this autumn. There are marks made with heat-sensitive invisible ink stamped on the egg shell. The stamps turn black as the egg heats, letting you know that your egg is soft, medium or hard-boiled.


A spokeswoman for Lion Quality Eggs, the service’s quality assurance scheme, said: “We had a lot of inquiries. We said OK, this is a big issue — people can’t even boil an egg.”


I will admit it. I am one of those people who doesn't know how to boil an egg. I use eggs mostly for baking. I can hard boil them if I must, but I only do that at Easter if I'm feeling nostalgic and I look up instructions online each time. My grand-mother used to make me soft boiled eggs when I was little, and I did like them, but I never make them now. I usually make my eggs sunny-side up (which I have perfected by the way). No recipes every call for soft-boiled eggs so why should I know how to cook them? I don't know how to microwave a hot dog either because cook them in boiling water on the rare occasion that I want to make one. So this novel idea of an egg (or a hot dog) that will tell me when it is done seems kind of fun to me.

What do you guys think? If something like this becomes available in the US (or wherever you live) will you buy them? I can see myself buying them once just so I can check it out. I supposed I will have to soft boil an egg then. . .


4 comments:

Unknown said...

Um...NO! I wouldn't buy this egg. It probably would cost more just for the ink and I can punch a time into a microwave and check the internet or Joy of Cooking for instructions. No ink for me! :-)

Rachel Rubin said...

Good point Claire! I wonder what the price will be compared to regular non-inked eggs.

I just got Joy of Cooking for Christmas. Do they have super simple recipes for things like boiling an egg? Wow. I'll definately be digging my nose into that book more often.

But what will happen if you microwave an egg for too long? Will it explode? Exploding food in a microwave is one of the reasons I don't use my microwave to cook things!

Unknown said...

OH! I didn't mean microwaving the egg...I meant using the timer on the microwave! I NEVER microwave eggs, although my roommate does scrambled (?) eggs in the microwave. I just prefer to pull out a pan and turn the stove on. Much better if you ask me! I haven't actually looked in Joy of Cooking but I would think that they have boiling instructions for eggs.

Anonymous said...

It is so interesting to see what kind of new things people come up with. This is one of those I can't believe they have this product kind of ideas. I bet it will be popular.

You, my dear, should save yourself some money and just following this recipe for hard boiled eggs. It is no fail, I promise!

Here's the link:
http://www.recipezaar.com/24799