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Tokneneng

Whole boiled chicken eggs in orange batter, with the boiling and the frying set by the larger egg.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg.

Ingredients

Method

  1. CHICKEN EGGS, AND THAT CHANGES EVERY TIME IN THE RECIPE. The kwek kwek on this site uses quail eggs, which boil in four minutes and fry in ninety seconds. A chicken egg needs nine minutes in the water and three in the oil, and it is big enough that the batter has to be thicker to stay on it.
  2. Boil the eggs 9 minutes from a rolling boil, then straight into cold water. Nine gives a yolk just set through; at seven the middle is soft and it leaks when you bite the fried egg.
  3. Peel them under running water and dry them completely. Any water left on the white and the batter slides off in the oil.
  4. Dust each one with the 3 tablespoons of cornflour, which is what the batter actually grips.
  5. Batter: cornflour, plain flour, annatto, salt and pepper whisked with the cold water. THICKER THAN FOR QUAIL EGGS -- about the consistency of double cream, thick enough to coat a spoon opaquely. Thin batter on a big egg runs off and fries as a skirt.
  6. Oil to 170C. Lower than you might expect: a chicken egg needs three minutes in there and at 190C the batter is dark before that.
  7. Roll an egg in the batter with a spoon, lift it out letting the excess drip, and lower it in. Three or four at a time.
  8. 3 minutes, turning, until the batter is firm and deep orange and no longer bubbling much.
  9. Drain on a rack. Serve with a vinegar dip -- vinegar, sugar, onion and chilli -- rather than with a sweet sauce, which the batter is already too sweet-tasting for.

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.

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