Chicken egg is the most popular ingredient of the egg recipes in our plate. Chicken egg is used to cook to dishes directly as well as to join in producing many other types of food as bread, cake, candy…
Chicken egg composition
In the egg recipes, the chicken egg is like mostly bird eggs. It includes 4 parts primarily. They are the yolk, white, membrane and shell. The yolk will be formed in the hen’s ovary firstly. When the yolk matures, it is released to the oviduct and can be fertilized (or not) there. The yolk then will continue its journey down the oviduct. On its way, it will be covered by a membrane and white layer, and the shell. The egg will be completed then and pushed out of the hen. The whole process is in about 24-25 hours.
The eggs mostly are oval shaped with one end is smaller than the other. It is because the egg was pressed and pushed on its way out. The end which comes outside firstly runs as pilot part and will be smaller than the other.
Chicken egg size and color
Using egg types for egg recipes, we see the rich type with different size and color of eggs. Related to the color of chicken egg, its shell could be white, brown, speckled, or even green and blue. It depends on the breed of the chicken. However the two most popular types of egg used in the egg recipes are white shell and brown shell egg. These two types are differently liked from areas. While in some countries as US, Egypt, Japan…white egg is common, the UK, France, Ireland, Brazil, Poland prefer the brown egg. Brown chicken egg is also widely marketed in Asia, but in some regions domestically white egg is more popular.
Sizes of the chicken egg in the egg recipes are also distinguished differently by areas. As the traditional sizes, chicken egg from 45 g to 75 g will be distinguished from size 7 (45 g) to 1 (75 g), each size is different 5g to the others. The eggs that are greater than 75g is at size 0. For Europe, they are only distinguish chicken eggs to some size, popular are large (63-73 g), medium (53-63g), small is for the eggs 53 or under 53g, the eggs that are 73 g and over are at large size. In Asia, possibly from the consumed custom, there is no clearly distinction for the egg sizes in consumption.
There are also similar distinctions from countries, we could consider the below table:
|
Size |
US | Canada | Australia |
New Zealand |
| Greater than 75g | Jumbo | Jumbo | King size | Jumbo |
| Greater than 73g | ||||
| Greater than 70g | ||||
| 68 – 70 g | Extra large | Extra large | Jumbo | |
| 66 – 68 g | Extra large | Extra large | Jumbo | Large |
| 63 – 66 g | Extra large | Extra large | Extra-large | |
| 58 – 63 g | Large | Large | Extra large | Standard |
| 56 – 58 g | Large | Large | Large | |
| 53 – 56 g | Medium | Medium | Large | |
| 49 – 53 g | Medium | Medium | Large | Medium |
| 44 – 49 g | Small | Small | Medium | |
| 42 – 44 g | Small | Small | Medium | |
| Less than 41 g | Peewee | Pullet | ||
| Less than 35 g | Peewee |
Chicken egg as food
As other types of eggs, chicken egg contains high level of protein, fat, vitamin A, vitamin B12, vitamin D, zinc, phosphorus, choline…The fat concentrates in the yolk and the egg white is free of fat. There are many egg recipes, but it is popular that we were advised to eat boiled chicken egg to help our body digesting and absorbing its nutrients wholly. Omelet and dried chicken egg could be consumed from 85 up to 95-98 % nutrients. Raw chicken egg could be consumed about 50% nutrition content, however, eating chicken egg raw is not recommended because it may cause of risk to health by the bacteria contained.
For the rich egg recipes, chicken eggs could be cooked directly or used as an ingredient in other dishes. The yolk and the white could be used separately to make different sweet and savory dishes. The egg white is popular in whipping to cream in cakes. And the yolk is also joined as other type of cream.
