Century Egg/Thousand Year Egg

[wings&wheels]

Who else has had one?

Friend's parents brought me a Century Egg as I'm known for pretty much trying almost any food once. Had it last night. I had one of these years ago in Singapore but I could not remember much about it...or much of that evening for that matter, was a real fun trip as far as business trips go

I was a bit hesitant this time, but it was very good. Rich, savory, smoky/salty flavor, unique, cannot really compare it to much else. They are made using, usually, duck eggs treated with an alkali.

Now I do remember trying balut, and will not be repeating that!

 

[Number_35]

Who else has had one?

Friend's parents brought me a Century Egg as I'm known for pretty much trying almost any food once. Had it last night. I had one of these years ago in Singapore but I could not remember much about it...or much of that evening for that matter, was a real fun trip as far as business trips go

I was a bit hesitant this time, but it was very good. Rich, savory, smoky/salty flavor, unique, cannot really compare it to much else. They are made using, usually, duck eggs treated with an alkali.

Now I do remember trying balut, and will not be repeating that!

My Filipino friend Mario described Balut for me around 30 years ago. He said it was very tasty with bit of vinegar, but then likely discouraged me forever by saying that it was not as good if the feathers had developed. Over and out.

 

[wwillson]

I didn't know so I had to look it up. I'd try them...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg

 

[Variant_S]

I used to order congee with pork and thousand year eggs when I'd go to lunch at a long-gone neighborhood Chinese restaurant.

 

[JHZR2]

I didn't know so I had to look it up. I'd try them...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg

Id try them, if made in the traditional way. In that link it sounds like they’ve found how to speed it up and produce them wrapped in plastic, which isn’t as appealing to me...

 

[CarLuver]

tofu,egg,sesame oil green onion. cut up and mix together . traditional dish.

kinda like this

https://i2.wp.com/farm3.static.flickr.com/2287/2211243028_e0b839455c.jpg

 

[97prizm]

It doesn't even look appetizing. Granted Kimchi smells horrible but tastes not bad.

 

[spasm3]

I once sent back a baked potato that looked like that, so no i'm not eating that.

 

[PandaBear]

The texture is just basically soft boiled egg, the color looks gross but it is actually sort of a smoky and cream cheese like texture, smoked salmon cream cheese on pretzel, unsalted, would be how I describe it.

Personally it is not my kind of food but there is nothing dangerous or century about it, last I heard it is done in 27 days.

Once upon a time there is urban legend that some shady place use ash with lead to cure it, it is no longer the case and it is just duck eggs with potassium lye and ash (hence the bagel like kick).

 

[Inked]

I had balut once as it was a right of passage. Once.

 

[y_p_w]

The modern way of doing is way different. The traditional way was to make a plaster that looked like mud, then got layered with rice chaff.

I found it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg#/media/File:Century_egg1.jpg

Modern ones look clean as they're actually soaked in a solution instead of being wrapped in the caustic mixture.

I've heard of them being made with chicken eggs, but it's almost always duck eggs available in the United States.

 

[PandaBear]

The tradition was always duck eggs for salted eggs and century eggs. It supposedly has a better "oily" texture than the starchy chicken egg yolk.

I am sure there were all sorts of ways to make them in addition to the black ash method. It is really a trade off between quality and price (just like aging wine in stainless steel container with wood chips vs wood barrels). When I grew up the cheaper ones are just dried with a layer of black mud you have to scrape of in the kitchen, and you buy them and wrap them in newspaper from the store like fish and chips. Then later the store sell them pre-scraped but it still has some mud residue. Now they came with styrofoam containers so having mud in the supermarket is not a good idea, especially in the US.

I remember checking every single eggs under a light bulb when I shopped for unrefrigerated eggs, fun time.