How to crack an egg with one hand--a cooking skill that makes little difference in the finished product, but impresses observers.
- Hold the egg in the palm of your hand (palm facing down), gripping firmly, but not squeezing, with the first and second fingers on one side and the thumb on the other side. This is the basic curveball grip, baseball fans.
- Tap the egg sharply against something hard*. Keep your wrist straight; wrist-flexing will absorb the energy of your tapping, and tend to prevent the egg from cracking. On your next--more vigorous--attempt, the egg will explode all over your hand and drive shards of egg shell into your flesh.
- Here's the tricky part: Without relaxing your grip, hold the egg over your intended receptacle and, while squeezing gently with your thumb, slide your first and second fingers in opposite directions along the surface of the egg, toward its ends, keeping the pressure of your fingers even. This seperates the two halves of the egg shell cleanly** and releases the egg content--usually in one piece. If it is important to you that the yolk should be unbroken, use a cold egg; otherwise, room temperature is best.
*As
sensei remarks, an egg shell cracked on a flat surface, rather than the edge of a bowl, will tend to stay in bigger pieces. This, I believe, is due to the relative
immobility of flat surfaces in the
kitchen compared to modern lightweight mixing
bowls and
Teflon pans. Really, a heavy china mixing bowl or
cast-iron pan is fine. Reduces clean-up, too.
**If you do end up with some bits of shell suspended in the egg white, use a large piece of shell to scoop them out--works better than fingers!
Concerning
wharfingergambit--one must be certain about such a thing as
flying egg attack--situation demanding of hardlink to
potato cannon node for
insurance of safe
breakfast with
exploding eggs and potatoes!