I’ve been wanting to make my own salted eggs, which is a classic Chinese dish, ever since I read about it from a homeschooler’s FB page. Partly because I felt like I was failing on the teaching Chinese culture front. What if my kids never learn how delicious salted eggs（鹹蛋）and hundred year old eggs (皮蛋) are?
Thank goodness for my mom. She brought some over when she came to help me move; and talked up just how delicious they are. Thumper had a taste and was sold.
That prompted me to research recipes after my mom left. It turns out that it is super duper easy to make! However, there are many recipes floating around. As usual, I researched the heck out of it and made my own recipe by combining tons of other ones. Which guarantees that it’ll fail the first time.
You learn from failures, I say. Perfect for homeschooling.
Supposedly the perfect salted egg is one whose egg yoke is “顏色紅而油多”, reddish and oily. I will likely perfect this version a bit more. I really like this recipe from Bean Panda even though I didn’t follow it.
Materials Needed
- Pastured duck eggs or chicken eggs 鴨蛋或雞蛋
- Glass jar 玻璃瓶
- Water 清水 1000g
- Corse salt 海鹽 200g (salt ratio is 25%)
- Rice wine 米酒 20g (wine ratio is 0.25%, proof of 30-40% best)
Optional:
- 花椒 Pepper 2 tsp
- 八角 Star anise 4-5
- 桂皮 Cinnamon 1 stick
- 月桂葉 Bay Leaf 5 leaves
- 茴香種子 Fennel Seeds 1 tsp
Instructions
- Wash eggs well, carefully put in container. I got myself some pastured duck eggs from Berkeley Bowl.
- Wait for water to cool, add rice wine.
- Boil water and dissolve salt, add optional ingredients.
- Slowly and carefully pour water into container. It must cover all eggs. You may need to put a little plate on top in order to make sure all the eggs are immersed.
The left is duck eggs in an old honey jar and the right an Ikea jar - Seal, leave in dry and cool place.
- Mark on calendar the starting date.
- Take out after 21 days. Wash off brine. Boil it for 8-10 minutes, cut open and eat. Alternatively, you can not boil it and use the egg yolk in other recipes like Chinese tamales 粽子 or moon cakes 月餅. Unused eggs can be stored in fridge up to 2 months.
After 25 days, I took out one chicken egg. They were not salty enough. So we waited till 32 days and opened it up again. This time, the egg yolk was just starting to get that great crumbly texture, though not oily enough. But the egg white was too salty. I think it’s because it’s regular salt? Not sure. The duck eggs were taken out a few days later and also super great in the egg yolk but egg white too salty. So next time I’m trying with sea salt instead.
Tips and Tricks
- Pastured and duck eggs apparently taste better because the egg yoke has a higher fat content.
- People typically use duck eggs because the eggs are not as porous, which apparently helps with the way the eggs are cured. Otherwise the salt gets into the egg too fast and cures the egg white and egg yolk at a different rate? Looks like tons of other people have had success with chicken eggs. So I don’t know how true it is.
- Make sure you use a glass jar instead of metal.
- Course salt without iodine is better. One recipe says iodine leaves a bitter taste.
- Some recipes don’t call for rice wine. But one recipe said high alcohol content makes the egg yoke oily.
- Different recipes call for different ratio wine and salt. Temperature and egg type affects how long it takes to pickle the eggs. One website says that in summer it takes 15 days and winter 30 days. So many people start taking an egg out every few days starting on day 21 to see which saltiness level they like.
- If you don’t pour water slowly you can crack the eggs.
- Because I didn’t have a little plate, I turned the solution upside down every few days so we get better distribution. Eggs not completely immersed may go bad.
- The longer you leave the eggs in the saltier they are.