Pickled Eggs
Eggs held in a salt brine for a month, until the yolks firm up and turn orange.
Duck, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains duck.
Ingredients
- 8 duck eggs, or hen eggs if you cannot get duck
- 1 litre water
- 250 g salt, for the brine, which is discarded
- 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
- 2 star anise
Method
- Boil the water with the salt until the salt has completely dissolved, then let it cool to room temperature. Warm brine will start to cook the shells' contents.
- The brine is deliberately very salty and is thrown away at the end — the eggs take up only a fraction of it through the shell, slowly, over weeks.
- Check each egg for cracks by holding it up to a light. A cracked one will take on salt far too fast and go rubbery.
- Stir the wine and star anise into the cooled brine, then lower the eggs in. Keep them submerged with a small plate or a bag of water.
- Seal the jar and leave it somewhere cool and dark for four weeks. Do not stir or shake it.
- Test one at three weeks by boiling it for 10 minutes and cutting it open. The yolk should be firm and orange and the white noticeably salty; if the yolk is still soft in the middle, give the rest another week.
- Boil the rest as you want them, 10 minutes from cold. Serve them quartered, with congee or plain rice.
Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.
Filed under China · All recipes