Stinky Eggs

“I have met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you're twenty minutes.” - Oscar Wilde

My wife loves hardboiled eggs but they stink-up the refrigerator with a sulfur smell for a day or more after cooking. I did some research and found two sites that say the smell is most likely from overcooking the eggs.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006021409626

http://hubpages.com/hub/Easy-Home-Egg-Freshness-Test-and-How-to-Boil-Eggs-that-Dont-Smell-Eggy

First check is if your eggs are too old. Eggs in the refrigerator can be stored safely for weeks but each egg is losing moisture through its shell, at the rate of about 5 milligrams of liquid per day. As the moisture escapes the shell, a small air pocket at the base of the egg grows. This provides an easy test for freshness: eggs that float in water are very old and should not be eaten. The quicker an egg sinks, the fresher it is.

If you eggs are fresh but still produce a sulfurous smell when hard boiled then you've overcooked them. Rapidly boiling water will overcook the white part of the egg before the yolks are completely set. Rapid boiling can also crack the shells. So the suggested technique for making hard boiled eggs is:

* Place eggs in pot of cold water, single layer, with an inch of water covering
* Heat just till boiling (let the eggs warm up slowly)
* Start your timer.
* Gently simmer your eggs at about 90 degrees. Some cooks say cover the pot and remove it from the burner.
* Eggs are solid at 13-17 minutes depending on the size of the egg (http://www.ochef.com/655.htm)
* Do NOT cook for longer than this.
* Stop the cooking process by removing the eggs from the pot and plunge them in cold water or place them briefly under cold running water. This is VERY important.

Get crackin'.

Bottom Line

Eggs are high in nutrients -- a very good source of selenium, iodine, and vitamin B2 and a good source of protein, molybdenum, phosphorous, vitamin B5, vitamin B12 and vitamin D. There are 78 Calories, 2 Weight Watchers points in one hard-boiled egg.

The bad: Eggs are high in Saturated Fat, and the yolks are very high in Cholesterol. The MayoClinic recommends just one egg a day if you eat the yolk.