Preserved duck egg

Black dish is the preserved duck eggs chopped and mixed with ginger-soy sauce  

Few weeks ago, we thought of doing wives-cooking and husbands-working day at one of our Chinese friend's house. Our husbands have same job and they work together. They had to do some home-works. And both of the wives love to cook. So she made some delicious Chinese dishes and I made our very popular Mo:Mo; Nepalese all time favorite Snack/ comfort-food/ lunch/dinner whatever you want to call is super fine, while our husbands worked hard on their projects. The piece of food- fun I will never forget from this get-together is the preserved duck egg,that I tried for the first time.

Preserved Duck Eggs               

I never dared to go and buy preserved eggs by myself. Although, I have heard from my Chinese friends that it tastes amazing, the look of the preserved eggs never made me determined enough to try it. I am thankful my friend who gave me just a little push to try it. Thus, I had a surprise tasting of preserved duck eggs with ginger and soy-sauce. She asked me if I want to try it. My answer would never be 'No' for a new food. On the contrary, the look was not that appealing. Still I said 'Yes'. It was bought in a vacuum-sealed package. She pealed the shell and let me smell. Opps, it smelled exactly like hydrogen-sulfite gas in a chemistry lab. I thought; well they liked it so much so it must taste like something 'not-horrible'. She chopped the eggs and put them in ginger and soy sauce mix. After sometime, it didn't smell hydrogen-sulfite gas at all. So the gas was gone. I picked a piece of albumin and yolk together and tasted. YUM.. it was smooth and creamy. I liked it. The albumin part was gelatinous greenish-black and yolk was darker in color. It had roasted flavor and ginger-soy made it even better. Now I had to let my husband try it. It was not that hard. I just spent few minutes persuading him to try a tiny, tiny bit of it. Finally he did and he said he liked it but he refused to get another piece.

How is it made?
 Preserved eggs are also known as 'century eggs' or 'thousand year old eggs'. The words given to them make it sound really precious piece of food. Traditionally in China, preserved eggs are made by caking them in rice hull, lime salt mud/ash for several months. The alkaline condition and the salt precipitate the protein and turn it into solid form. It is the same result as when we cook eggs. When they are cooked the liquid form turns to solid. The package of the preserved eggs we had, had only written 'vinegar and egg' on it. So, we could not know how exactly it was made. Acid also coagulates protein. Apparently it was just preserved in vinegar. This may be how commercial preserved eggs are made in the market. Hope I didn't eat anything toxic… probably not because I am here writing about it.