KitchenSavvy

Difference Between "Free Run" and "Free Range" Eggs

At the grocery store recently, I bought a cartoon of what I thought were free range eggs.  When I got home, I noticed that the package said "free run."  What is the difference?

--Glenda

Eggs can come from hens that are 'free range", "free run" or "battery".  The image people are most familiar with is that of "battery hens", crowded into cages with very little room to move.  Feed is placed in a trough at the front of the cage and eggs that are laid roll across the sloped floor so that they can be easily gathered.

On the other end of the spectrum is the idyllic thought of hens free to roam about the great outdoors, pecking their food from the ground and nesting where they wish.  This is the "free range" chicken.

Between these two is the "free run" hen, which is given the freedom to move about an enclosed barn and provided with nesting boxes in which to lay eggs.

In practice, many free range chickens, while they may have access to the outdoors, still rely on the shelter and safety of the barn and so are more like free run chickens than the mental image suggests.  In colder climates, such as Canada, hens are only able to be free range for part of the year.

While free range and free run eggs come from chickens that are handled in a more humane fashion, they are more difficult to gather and may have been laid in less sanitary conditions, making the labor costs and spoilage factors higher than for battery chickens.  This accounts for some portion of the increased price for these eggs.

There is little or no oversight of the industry to make sure that packing claims reflect actual conditions.  Nutritionally, the eggs from all three sources are quite similar.

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© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Keeping Easter Eggs

How long can you keep boiled easter eggs without refrigeration?  How long can you keep boiled eggs in the fridge?  Please, we need this answer A.S.A.P.

--Ed

I assume when you ask how long can you keep boiled Easter eggs without refrigeration, you mean ones that you intend to eat afterwards.  If so, then the general food safety rule holds.  Cooked food should be kept no more than two hours at room temperature.   You may think that the shell will provide some extra safety, and therefore more time, but when it comes to food safety and the health of family and friends, it is always better to err on the conservative side, so stick with just two hours.

According to the American Egg Board, hard cooked eggs still in their shells will keep in the fridge for up to one week.  If they are peeled, they should be kept in the fridge for no more than three days.

If you store hard boiled eggs in the fridge, you may notice an odor from the outgassing of hydrogen sulfide formed during the cooking.  The odor will dissipate in a few hours and does not necessarily mean that the eggs were bad, assuming they were not past their "best before" date.

In any case, if you are dyeing the eggs first and then plan to eat them, be sure to use only food safe dyes.  Regular food coloring works well for dyeing eggs.

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Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Discoloration of Egg Yolks

How do I keep an egg from turning dark inside when it is hard boiled?

--Raymond

The gray-green ring that forms around the yolk of a hard-boiled egg is the result of iron in the yolk combining with sulfur compounds to produce ferrous sulfide.  There appears to be some question as to whether the sulfur comes from the white or whether the yolk itself has sufficient sulfur to cause the discoloration to happen.  In any case, the reaction is encouraged by heat.  The colored ring is harmless.

To avoid having this happen, use the freshest possible eggs (see the post Peeling Hard-Boiled Eggs if you plan to peel them), do not over-cook the eggs, and if they are not being served right away cool them down in ice water to prevent continued cooking once they are taken off heat. 

As always, I recommend the Norpro Egg Rite Egg Timer to get eggs cooked to perfection.

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Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Crème fraîche

What is crème fraîche?  I have several recipes that call for it but I can't find it anywhere.

--Eva

Crème fraîche [pronounced 'krem FRESH'] is a common ingredient in French cooking.  It is a fermented cream product with 30% or more butter fat, by weight, and is used to garnish soups or desserts.  It is also used as an ingredient in sauces, and may be incorporated into cheese cakes.  Crème fraîche is somewhat thicker than American sour cream and has a distinctly nutty and tangy flavor.

Because cream products in the United States and Canada are pasteurized, it is not easy to get an authentic crème fraîche, which is made from raw milk.

In some recipes, particulalry sauces, you can substitute commercial yogurt or sour cream thickened with a small amount of corn starch, but for a more accurate taste and texture, especially when it is used as a garnish for fruits or other desserts, try combining two tablespoons of buttermilk with one cup of whipping cream.  Store in a sealed, sterilized jar for 8 to 24 hours at room temperature.  The longer you leave it, the thicker it will be and the more the flavor will develop.

After that time, your crème fraîche can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Crème fraîche is not suitable for whipping.

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Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Freezing Tzatziki

Can you freeze tzatziki? I have gallons of it left after a wedding.  help!

-- Wendy

This was kind of answered in the posting on Freezing Cream Cheese Dips.

The chances are that your tzatziki may exude some water after it has been frozen and then thawed.   If so, I would recommend pouring that off rather than trying to stir it back in.

The flavor should still be OK after freezing, but the texture may become grainy, depending on the amount of fat it contains.   If it does turn grainy, there is not much you can do to remedy that.   To help reduce the chances of it becoming grainy, you could try stirring in some heavy cream, although doing so will thin out the flavor and make it more runny.  If the tzatziki was made from full fat Greek Yogurt, or otherwise has a high fat content (more than maybe 12%), you may be OK, anyhow.

If you have the time, try freezing a small amount and then thawing it out the next day to see what happens to the texture.  Otherwise, I would package it into serving portions, freeze the lot and hope for the best.

Either that or eat tzatziki for breakfast, lunch and supper!

The longer you keep it frozen, the more likely the texture will be affected.   It should, however, keep for three months or more.

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Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Beurre Blanc Breaks

Every time I try to make a Beurre Blanc, it separates into a greasy mess.  What is happening, and how can I prevent it?

--Meegan

A Beurre Blanc is a sauce made by reducing a mixture of wine, vinegar and shallots.  Butter is whisked into this to form a sauce about the consistency of heavy cream.  Other acids and flavors can be substituted for the vinegar and shallots, respectively, to make a variety of sauces.  For example, lemon juice, garlic and a pinch of saffron can be used to make a very tasty sauce for shrimp or other sea foods.

The name is pronounced "Burr Blonk" and literally means "white butter" in French.

What is happening is likely one of two things, either you are using clarified butter in place of whole butter, or you are allowing the sauce to become too hot.

To understand, you need to know that Beurre Blanc is an emulsion of fat globules (small spheres of fat) evenly distributed in water.  Normally oil and water don't mix.  However by breaking the fat up into small globules and then coating those with a compound called an emulsifier, you can get them to combine into a homogeneous whole.  The emulsifier in Beurre Blanc is a milk protein that attaches to the fat globules and causes them to repel each other.  Because they are forced apart, the fat globules don't combine into bigger and bigger globs.

The reason you need to use whole butter is that the naturally occurring emulsifiers in whole butter are found in the non-fat part of the butter, which makes up about one fifth of its total weight.  If you use clarified butter, you have removed the emulsifier which make a Beurre Blanc work.

The other detail which you need to know is that the fat globules in butter are surrounded by a thin protein membrane.  At 136°F (58°C) this membrane breaks down, allowing the oil inside to leak out.  If you overheat a Beurre Blanc, the oil inside the fat globules will escape their protein/emulsifier cage and separate out.  The good news is that if you allow the sauce to cool to about 110°F (43°C), and then add a small amount of water and whisk it in, the sauce will re-form.  However since the oil is now released from the enclosing protein membrane that it previously had, it will slowly seep back out of the sauce.

The easiest way to avoid this problem, I find, is to start with chilled butter.  Once the wine and vinegar mixture has reduced sufficiently, I allow it to cool slightly off heat and then add a couple of tablespoons of the cold butter and whisk it in.  Once that has melted in, I add a couple more tablespoons of butter and repeat until it is all incorporated.  If the sauce cools off enough that the butter doesn't melt in, then I return the pan to the heat just long enough to get the heat up enough to start softening the un-melted butter.  By working back and forth like this -- on and off the heat -- I can regulate the temperature enough to keep the sauce from breaking.  Once all of the butter is incorporated, I return the sauce to the heat one final time while still whisking it, to warm it through, being careful to not allow it to get too hot.  If the sauce starts to get a sheen or I see any drops of oil start to appear, then I immediately take it off heat and whisk it until it cools down a bit.  It is then ready to serve.

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Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Greek Yogurt

I have many recipes that require an ingredient called "Greek Yogurt".  How is Greek Yogurt different from other types of yogurt? Is it widely available?

-- Ivonne

There are three major differences between traditional Greek Yogurt, called yiaourti in Greece, and what you find in most North American supermarkets.  Greek Yogurt may be made from sheep's or cow's milk.  It may be somewhat higher in fat content than standard yogurt.  And most importantly, it is considerably thicker.

Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker

To start with, sheep's milk has a somewhat different flavor which some describe as tangy or nutty.  Raw sheep's milk contains as much as 7% milk fat, by weight, compared to about 3.7% for cow's milk.  In production, either the milk is boiled down to reduce the water content or the yogurt is strained to remove excess moisture, resulting in a product which is the consistency of clotted cream.  The decreased water content results in a higher still percentage of milk fat, as much as 10% for the final product.  Substituting supermarket yogurt for Greek Yogurt won't work in many recipes due to the excess liquid and runnier consistency.  If you have ever had tzatziki made from regular yogurt, you probably found it thin and watery.  On the other hand, tzatziki made with Greek Yogurt is thicker and smoother.

Greek Yogurt may be found in some specialty or ethnic food stores.  The Fage brand of Greek Yogurt is available in the United States, although I have not seen it in Canada.  Some local artisanal dairies and cheese makers may even make Greek Yogurt.

If you can't find Greek Yogurt where you live, you can make an acceptable substitute by straining supermarket yogurt.  To do this, I line a large strainer with a coffee filter, set it over a bowl and dump in a container of full fat regular yogurt.  I then cover the whole thing with plastic wrap and leave it in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.  When done, the yogurt will have reduced in volume by about half, and there will be an equal amount of slightly yellowish liquid in the bowl.  The strained yogurt, which some refer to as yogurt cheese, can now be used in cooking.  I prefer full fat yogurt for three reasons.  First the added fat will make it more tolerant to cooking.  Second, some flavors are fat soluble and therefore are better distributed in a full fat base.  And finally, the added fat improves the mouthfeel of the finished product.

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Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Freezing Cream Cheese Dips

Is it OK to make ahead and freeze dips that have a cream cheese base?

-- Penny

To some extent, the answer depends on the recipe and ingredients that you are using, as well as the length of time that the dip is being frozen. 

When frozen, cream cheese can become crumbly and some of the water in the cheese may separate out.  Blending cream cheese with some heavy cream, however, may help to avoid these problems.  Low fat cream cheese is therefore more likely to cause problems than full fat (33% MF) cream cheese.  If you are going to freeze cream cheese, most sources recommend not freezing it for more than about two weeks.

All of this means that you may see an noticeable loss of quality if you make cream cheese based dips ahead of time and freeze them.  They may not spread smoothly, and may have a grainy texture.

On the other hand, if you have leftover dip that hasn't been previously frozen, you could freeze it and use it later in recipes where the texture doesn't matter so much.  An herb cream cheese dip might, for instance, be used to make a savory cheese cake.

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If you have food or cooking questions, send them to Questions@KitchenSavvy.com
Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward