The century egg is known by many names. Millennium egg, hundred-year egg thousand-year egg comes to mind. The Thais, I think, have a good sense of humour. They call it 'horse urine egg', aptly describing the strong ammonia odour that surrounds it. How the century egg is made has nothing to do with horse urine, of course.
Personally, I don't find the odour as bad as it has been made out to be. Garlic breath proves more potent in the gagging factor.
How century eggs are made:
Wikipedia:
".....made by preserving duck, chicken or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls for several weeks to several months, depending on the method of processing.
After a period of preservation, the egg white turns very dark brown, almost blackish. The texture is jelly-like and can be plain tasting or light salty. The yolk is a lump of rich fermented creaminess, usually a dull greyish colour.
Eating it:
No cooking required. It is usually eaten plain. It can be paired with pickled ginger. It is popularly added into porridge and Asian steamed egg dishes. It can be chopped up and sprinkled as topping for lightly flavoured braised or stir-fried greens. It works great as a topping on bland tofu too.
Removing the shell:
If you're buying century eggs without the dried clay mix around the egg, all you do is crack the shell and peel the skin off like you would a hard boiled egg.
I usually buy the ones with the dried clay still stuck on, as pictured below:
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| Century Eggs wrapped in a Clay Mix with Rice Hulls |
Removing this clay can be a challenge. This one was too hard for me to break off.
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| Preserved Duck Egg - Century Egg |
What I usually do is dunk it in a bowl of water for very a short time (30 seconds to under a minute).
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| Dunk century egg in water to loosen the dried clay |
Then, nudge the clay mixture off. I work with disposable plastic gloves on. The clay will come off easily and in large pieces (as shown below). Rinse under water to clean off the remaining clay mixture.
At this point, you can choose to use a blunt serrated knife to scrape off the difficult parts, but I do this only if I want a completely clean shell. Otherwise, just crack the egg open and be done with it.
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| Nudge the clay mix off the century egg |
This is what it looks like scraped clean.
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| A 'clean' century egg |
Below are pictures to show you what it looks like inside. It is not unusual to see a pine or snowflake pattern on the egg.
1) Crack the shell open like how you would a hard boiled egg. I knock it in several places before peeling.
2) Rinse the egg before slicing.
3) It's very gooey in the center. Clean the knife before slicing again.
4) Now, it is ready to be served and eaten!
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| Preserved Duck Egg (Century Egg) |
