Songhuadan, or Chinese thousand-year eggs. Cold appetizer from “hundred-year-old eggs” with Duojiao (recipe with photo) Chinese black eggs recipe

This is how it happens - you screw up for 8 hours at work, come home, and the most disgusting dinner in the world is waiting for you. As part of Vikin’s cultural enrichment, a Chinese friend told us to forget everything we know about Chinese restaurants, which in North America are still completely out of step with sanitary standards and the expectations of average customers. So, Roxy volunteered to cook real Chinese food.

Disgusting. But don't think I'm being so negative about all Chinese cuisine or Roxy's abilities. No, it’s just that this dish called “The Hundred Year Egg” usually tops all the ratings of the most disgusting dishes in the world.

Pidan (皮蛋) - hundred-year-old egg

As a result of the chemical reaction, the alkalinity of the yolk increases greatly, and its pH rises to 9-12, like soap. As a result of the reaction, the protein acquires a jelly-like consistency and a deep amber color, and on its surface microscopic crystals form a pattern similar to frost on a window. It is believed that the larger and clearer the pattern, the better the quality of the egg, so ours is so good.

The yolk becomes dark gray and creamy with shades from green to black - the inside is more liquid than the outside.

Feels like a good soft French cheese, hard on the outside and almost liquid on the inside. By the way, French cheese itself successfully tops the Chinese lists of the most disgusting dishes.

The taste... how can I describe it, something like a boiled, mushy egg, if such a thing could exist, or perhaps like a fermented oyster. Once I mixed all the medicines in the house one tablet at a time and let it brew on the radiator, there was a similar smell.

A little pungent, with the smell of ammonia and there is clearly something similar to sinusitis. In short, we definitely lack the gene that allows us to appreciate this snack at its true worth.

Lots of spicy Chinese cabbage and a bottle of beer will help keep all the ammonia flavor inside. The main thing is not to think that you are eating a rotten egg.

In the next episode, Vika treats Roxy to borscht and cheesecakes.

The most disgusting dinner Pidan (皮蛋) - hundred-year-old egg was last modified: September 21st, 2016 by Anton Belousov

: pidan; name option - "thousand year egg") - a popular snack in Chinese cuisine; is an egg kept for several months in a special mixture without access to air. Probably, the prototype of the “hundred-year eggs” were eggs that were covered with alkaline clay for long-term storage.

Preparation

To prepare “hundred-year eggs,” duck or chicken eggs are usually used, sometimes quail eggs are also used. There are a number of options for preparing them, but they all boil down to immersing the eggs in a highly alkaline environment and completely sealing them off from air. Fresh duck, chicken or quail eggs are coated with a mixture of tea, lime, salt, ash and clay, then rolled in rice husks and straw, placed in baskets and buried in the ground. In domestic conditions, it is recommended to use alkali - sodium hydroxide to prepare alkaline coating, and polymer film to insulate from air.

As a result of chemical processes, the white and yolk of eggs acquire a highly alkaline reaction - they increase to 9 and even 12 (this is approximately the same as for soap). The process of preparing eggs takes approximately 15-20 days depending on the time of year (longer in winter), but eggs are often kept for 3-4 months. In properly cooked eggs, the whites acquire an elastic consistency and become dark brown and translucent. The yolk becomes creamy, dark in color (from light gray to almost black with a greenish tint) and emits a strong ammonia smell. On the surface of a shelled finished egg, you can often notice patterns reminiscent of frost on a window, which are formed by microscopic crystals of substances released from the egg. This was the reason for another name for this snack in Chinese - “pine eggs”, or “pine needle eggs”.

“Century eggs” are distinguished by good storage stability - if they are left in coating, they can last up to several years.

Use

"Century eggs" are a common snack in China and countries with historically strong Chinese cultural influence (Southeast Asia, to a certain extent Japan and Korea). Typically, "century eggs" are eaten without further cooking. Most often they are served as an independent snack, cut into slices. They can be seasoned with soy or oyster sauce. Sometimes “centenary eggs” are used as a component of salads and other complex dishes. Thus, finely chopped eggs in China and Southeast Asian countries are often added to rice porridge.

Gallery

Century egg1.jpg

Egg coated with coating and rice husks

Century Eggs Pack.JPG

Factory packaging of “centenary eggs”

Century egg snow flake.jpg

Crystal patterns on the “hundred-year-old egg”

Sliced ​​egg with rice porridge

Century egg by Kent Wang.jpg

Dish made from “hundred-year-old eggs”

Century egg with cucumber by jetalone in Ginza.jpg

Appetizer of “hundred-year-old eggs” on cucumber

DuizenjarigEi.jpg

"Century Egg" removed from packaging

Pidan doufu by fortes in Beijing.jpg

Tofu dish with “hundred-year-old eggs”

Pidan doufu salad with strawberries by Kent Wang in Shanghai.jpg

Salad with strawberries and “hundred-year-old eggs”

Preserved egg by Chun"s.jpg

Dish made from “hundred-year-old eggs”

Sliced ​​century egg by .Florian.jpg

Centenary eggs, sliced

See also

Write a review about the article "The Hundred Year Egg"

Notes

Excerpt characterizing the Centenary Egg

On the square where the sovereign went, a battalion of Preobrazhensky soldiers stood face to face on the right, and a battalion of the French Guard in bearskin hats on the left.
While the sovereign was approaching one flank of the battalions, which were on guard duty, another crowd of horsemen jumped up to the opposite flank and ahead of them Rostov recognized Napoleon. It couldn't be anyone else. He rode at a gallop in a small hat, with a St. Andrew's ribbon over his shoulder, in a blue uniform open over a white camisole, on an unusually thoroughbred Arabian gray horse, on a crimson, gold embroidered saddle cloth. Having approached Alexander, he raised his hat and with this movement, Rostov’s cavalry eye could not help but notice that Napoleon was sitting poorly and not firmly on his horse. The battalions shouted: Hurray and Vive l "Empereur! [Long live the Emperor!] Napoleon said something to Alexander. Both emperors got off their horses and took each other's hands. There was an unpleasantly feigned smile on Napoleon's face. Alexander said something to him with an affectionate expression .
Rostov, without taking his eyes off, despite the trampling of the horses of the French gendarmes besieging the crowd, followed every move of Emperor Alexander and Bonaparte. He was struck as a surprise by the fact that Alexander behaved as an equal with Bonaparte, and that Bonaparte was completely free, as if this closeness with the sovereign was natural and familiar to him, as an equal, he treated the Russian Tsar.
Alexander and Napoleon with a long tail of their retinue approached the right flank of the Preobrazhensky battalion, directly towards the crowd that stood there. The crowd suddenly found itself so close to the emperors that Rostov, who was standing in the front rows, became afraid that they would recognize him.
“Sire, je vous demande la permission de donner la legion d" honneur au plus brave de vos soldats, [Sire, I ask your permission to give the Order of the Legion of Honor to the bravest of your soldiers,] said a sharp, precise voice, finishing each letter It was the short Bonaparte who spoke, looking directly into Alexander’s eyes, Alexander listened attentively to what was being said, and bowed his head, smiling pleasantly.
“A celui qui s"est le plus vaillament conduit dans cette derieniere guerre, [To the one who showed himself bravest during the war],” Napoleon added, emphasizing each syllable, with a calm and confidence outrageous for Rostov, looking around the ranks of Russians stretched out in front of there are soldiers, all on guard and motionless looking into the face of their emperor.
“Votre majeste me permettra t elle de demander l"avis du colonel? [Your Majesty will allow me to ask the colonel’s opinion?] - said Alexander and took several hasty steps towards Prince Kozlovsky, the battalion commander. Meanwhile, Bonaparte began to take off his white glove, small hand and tearing it apart, the Adjutant threw it, hastily rushing forward from behind, and picked it up.
- Who should I give it to? – Emperor Alexander asked Kozlovsky not loudly, in Russian.
- Whom do you order, Your Majesty? “The Emperor winced with displeasure and, looking around, said:
- But you have to answer him.
Kozlovsky looked back at the ranks with a decisive look and in this glance captured Rostov as well.
“Isn’t it me?” thought Rostov.
- Lazarev! – the colonel commanded with a frown; and the first-ranked soldier, Lazarev, smartly stepped forward.
-Where are you going? Stop here! - voices whispered to Lazarev, who did not know where to go. Lazarev stopped, looked sideways at the colonel in fear, and his face trembled, as happens with soldiers called to the front.
Napoleon slightly turned his head back and pulled back his small chubby hand, as if wanting to take something. The faces of his retinue, having guessed at that very second what was going on, began to fuss and whisper, passing something on to one another, and the page, the same one whom Rostov saw yesterday at Boris’s, ran forward and respectfully bent over his outstretched hand and did not make her wait either. one second, he put an order on a red ribbon into it. Napoleon, without looking, clenched two fingers. The Order found itself between them. Napoleon approached Lazarev, who, rolling his eyes, stubbornly continued to look only at his sovereign, and looked back at Emperor Alexander, thereby showing that what he was doing now, he was doing for his ally. A small white hand with an order touched the button of soldier Lazarev. It was as if Napoleon knew that in order for this soldier to be happy, rewarded and distinguished from everyone else in the world forever, it was only necessary for him, Napoleon’s hand, to be deigned to touch the soldier’s chest. Napoleon just put the cross to Lazarev's chest and, letting go of his hand, turned to Alexander, as if he knew that the cross should stick to Lazarev's chest. The cross really stuck.

This post is about food, but I wouldn’t call it appetizing :)
I want to talk about “hundred-year eggs” (or, as they are also called, “thousand-year eggs”). I've heard a lot about one of the strangest delicacies. Or “delicacies”, because, according to CNN, such eggs top the list of the most disgusting dishes. But hearing this is one thing... but before I couldn’t even think that I would try!

To begin with, I will share my impressions, and at the end I will add material from Wikipedia about “Century Eggs”.

The shell seemed a little rough to me and the coloring was less uniform than a regular raw egg. I started to break it - it was more difficult to break, and it felt like you were hitting a rubber ball on the table; the egg was a little springy. But it wasn’t difficult to remove the shell; it comes off easily. The protein itself was slightly moist and a beautiful tea color. In general, I would compare the appearance of the protein with black tea jelly! She sniffed it - there was no smell, took a knife and cut it. The smell of ammonia hit my nose... it’s only the yolk that smells, right?

I looked at it for about 10 minutes. Beautiful! But the smell and the awareness of the fact that the egg was “not the first freshness” prevented me from trying the “delicacy”.

Exhaling, she pinched her nose with one hand, threw a slice into her mouth with the other... and nothing! I chew and NOTHING! Like tasteless jelly….the first couple of seconds! And then a sharp, bright taste of mold (?) hit my nose, I don’t know what to compare it with. And the taste began to be felt in the mouth...meh! No, I couldn't swallow it. So I have to share CNN’s opinion.
But it’s so beautiful, isn’t it? :)

And a little from Wikipedia:
"Hundred Year Egg" (pídàn)- a popular Chinese snack; is an egg kept for several months in a special mixture without access to air. There are a number of options for preparing them, but they all boil down to immersing the eggs in a highly alkaline environment and completely sealing them off from air.
As a result of chemical processes, the white and yolk of eggs become highly alkaline - their pH rises to 9 and even 12 (this is approximately the same as for soap). The process of preparing eggs takes approximately 15-20 days depending on the time of year, but eggs are often aged for 3-4 months.
On the surface of a shelled finished egg, you can often notice patterns reminiscent of frost on a window, which are formed by microscopic crystals of substances released from the egg. Eggs have good storage stability - if left covered in coating, they can be stored for up to several years.
Centenary eggs are a common snack in China and countries with historically strong Chinese cultural influence. Typically, “hundred-year eggs” are eaten without further cooking. Most often they are served as an independent snack, cut into slices. They can be seasoned with soy or oyster sauce. Sometimes “centenary eggs” are used as a component of salads and other complex dishes. Thus, finely chopped eggs are often added to rice porridge.

Centennial eggs June 17th, 2014

Recently, the American television company CNN, with the help of its so-called citizen correspondents, compiled a list of the most disgusting dishes in the world. The main terrible delicacy was called “hundred-year-old eggs” - a traditional dish of Chinese cuisine. A few days later, the Chinese themselves reacted to CNN’s insolence - they were offended by the television company, accused its employees of ignorance and demanded an apology.

“CENTURY EGGS” or as it is also called “thousand-year egg” is a Chinese delicacy. This is a black artificially aged egg that never spoils.

Let's find out how it turns out this way...

Photo 2.

The eggs are covered with rice husks, clay, salt and ash. The shells of eggs protect them from exposure to these elements and germs for several months while they are buried. Eggs have a different consistency than their fresh counterparts. The white turns into a creamy brown jelly, and the yolk turns into a black powdery substance. Consumption of “centenary eggs” is believed to cure high blood pressure and relieve poor appetite. Historically they are made from duck eggs, but goose, chicken, turkey and quail eggs can be used as alternatives.

Photo 3.

The modern cooking method may differ from the traditional one. New methods involve soaking eggs in a very strong alkaline solution. To soften the yolk of “centenary eggs,” zinc or lead oxide is sometimes added. The main catalyst for the physicochemical changes that occur in buried eggs is sodium hydroxide, which forms in the paste or solution covering the eggs. This alkali causes changes in the color and consistency of the egg components.

"Century eggs" have an odor that is reminiscent of some cleaning products. Hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, which are produced during the fermentation process, give the eggs their distinctive signature. Eggs can be used as a side dish or served separately. They are most often eaten with tofu or with congee and pork. Since some cooking methods involve the use of lead oxide, there is a possibility that lead oxide may be present in the product. You don’t have to visit China to try “hundred-year-old eggs.” Most Asian grocery stores outside the region carry this delicacy.

Photo 5.

The traditions of national cuisines are sometimes very ambiguous: in some places it is considered common to eat fried guinea pig for lunch, in others they prefer duck blood soup, and in some places they serve unattractively colored eggs that have lain in the ground for a couple of months. And nothing - people eat. True, for some who are accustomed, for example, to eating cheeseburgers with cola, this approach to the diet seems, to put it mildly, strange.

This is understandable - gastronomic traditions are formed over centuries in a certain territory, and traveling far beyond its borders is often dangerous and unpleasant. Even today, for example, not everyone copes with natural disgust, which, when introduced to exotic food, acts as a kind of insurance against an accident - it would not be very polite on the part of a newcomer if he suddenly vomited on the hospitable table of foreign friends.

Photo 6.

To try “hundred-year-old eggs,” which look like some kind of alien jelly, you don’t have to go to a remote Chinese village. You can just go to the supermarket and buy a package of these ugly eggs, but obviously loved by the Chinese. There are several companies involved in the production of such products, but the largest of them is currently Shendan, whose employees apparently read CNN Go from time to time.

Photo 7.

It is difficult to explain otherwise what happened literally a week after the publication of the list of disgusting food. And this is what happened: on July 6, the chairman of the board of directors of Shendan and three thousand of his subordinates sent a complaint to CNN, in which they demanded an apology for assigning the title of the most disgusting food in the world to “hundred-year-old eggs.”

The document states, among other things, that employees of an American television company made completely unfounded and unscientific conclusions about the taste of the famous Chinese snack. And this circumstance indicates that the authors of the note about national dishes showed disrespect for foreign culture, and also demonstrated their ignorance and arrogance.

Photo 8.

On the one hand, the comrades from the Shendan egg company can understand who would like it if your favorite food is called an utter disgusting thing that cannot be eaten without tears in your eyes and the urge to vomit. But on the other hand, if you look at the situation a little differently, you can come to simple and obvious conclusions.

The private opinion of a person who bought unusual food for the sake of a culinary experiment cannot be called ignorant and arrogant. Even if, before taking a sample from the “hundred-year-old eggs,” the author of the note about them had armed himself to the teeth with all sorts of theoretical calculations about the history of the origin of the recipe and the benefits of the product, he would hardly have been able to contrast this knowledge with the reaction of his taste buds.

Photo 9.

After all, a CNN citizen correspondent described the experience honestly, and these vivid emotions of a typical Westerner give more insight into the taste of an Eastern product than the phrase “traditional, healthy dish with a rich history.” After all, readers are waiting for an assessment, and not for what they themselves are able to read in a culinary encyclopedia.

In a word, before starting to write an angry complaint, the Chinese company should not have forgotten that there are indeed many quite unique and strange dishes in the world and their popularity directly depends on the culinary preferences of not only different nationalities in general, but also individual people in particular (especially Moreover, some Chinese residents speak about the simplest and most familiar cheese to most Westerners in much the same way as the author of a short article in CNN Go about “hundred-year-old eggs”).

It is possible that among the readers of this text there will be one fearless fan of “hundred-year-old eggs” who orders them for crazy money directly from China and at the same time cannot stand fried potatoes, calling them nothing less than the most disgusting food in the world. So one might not pay any attention to someone’s “fu” to a large producer of egg products.

This is what other producers of those unusual dishes that appeared on CNN's list have done (at least for now). In particular, Philippine woodworm larvae in a sauce of vinegar, salt and lime are next in the ranking after the “hundred-year-old eggs.” Until it occurred to the Filipinos to write a letter to CNN with a complaint along the lines of “I don’t consider your stupid hot dog to be food.”

Photo 10.

There were no angry letters from those who specialize in the production of fermented soy chips (Indonesia), dog meat and tripe products (South Korea), fried spiders (Cambodia), fried cicadas (Thailand) and fried frogs (Philippines again). Because, probably, all these people have no time - they are busy with their own affairs, and crazy foreigners traveling around different countries and making wide eyes at the sight of locusts in sweet sauce are not their orders.

And rightly so. Conflicts in which taste is the key point are doomed to failure. In the end, such clashes of opinions are about the same as arguing about the beauty of a particular shade of color. Everyone will still have their own opinion. And instead of quarreling over some nonsense, it’s better to make yourself a huge sandwich with delicious cheese, or no less tasty “hundred-year-old eggs” - that’s who you like.

Photo 11.

Europeans often call these eggs “rotten”, and the Chinese, on the contrary, “imperial”. Why such a difference in perception? As you know, “a billion Chinese cannot be wrong”...

Photo 12.

Photo 13.

As soon as I got a room in Shenzhen, I went to explore the store for some products – some familiar and some not so familiar. There were a lot of strange things in the supermarket and it was not at all clear what was inside the boxes and packages with hieroglyphs and completely meaningless pictures. Having already collected a bunch of oddities (half of which I threw out as soon as I tried them), I got to the rows with eggs. ABOUT! Breakfast! I'll take it!

Next to the completely Soviet white eggs and, probably, chicken eggs, there were these slightly bluish-greenish ones with a speck and a label that said in Koryak English that these were duck eggs. After reading this, I remembered that I once ate duck eggs. But that was so long ago that it’s no longer true. I took duck ones to remember what they are.

In the morning, put a frying pan on the stove, put some oil on the frying pan... I took out a couple of eggs, fearing Chinese unsanitary conditions, and washed them with soap just in case... The frying pan had already warmed up by this time, so taking a knife, I hit the shell of the first egg.

And something went wrong...

It didn't break.

Having picked the shell, an interesting thing became noticeable: the egg inside was black and dense, like a boiled one. My knowledge of zoology did not include knowledge of how strange it was for duck eggs, so I sniffed it, tried a tiny piece, didn’t understand anything and decided to put it off until better times.

At work I asked our Chinese (teaching assistants) what it was. They didn’t really explain anything to me, but they said that you can crumble it into rice after boiling it first.

Which is what I did when I got home. More precisely, I boiled them and cleaned them for cutting and crumbling into rice. The egg looked like this (the photo this time is not mine, well, I didn’t guess... So I’m taking masterpieces from some Chinese sites):

I cut it and smelled it. When cut, they are not so beautiful, but they are also very unusual...

The egg smelled strongly of ammonia. And then I remembered. I read somewhere about strange foods from all over the world. And it was about pickled Chinese eggs, which are typical specifically for the Guangdong province, where I lived. Some call them hundred-year eggs, and some call them thousand-year eggs. According to the Internet, it turned out that first they prepare a mixture of lime, ash and horse urine (however, not all sites referred to urine), coat the eggs with it and leave it for 100 days. Here.

But there was also something about being sure to try them in one of the Chinese restaurants, so buying them in the nearest supermarket was a surprise for me.

Well, ammonia was pouring out very strongly, but why not try! So I bit. She honestly chewed and swallowed. The rest was thrown into the trash. The taste for me came down to one single association that arose in the brain - caustic.

However, the pleasure is dubious, but these eggs look very cool. When leaving China, I came up with something to do with entertainment: I bought a couple of them and started treating my Russian friends in Thailand (by the way, I later saw them in stores here too. In Thailand they are in shells, painted pink) + an Italian friend of mine came to Malaysia... Of course, there was no limit to the friends’ delight - they say, wasn’t there anything nicer to bring as a gift?? But we tried everything honestly. However, no one was impressed enough to eat the whole egg.