Chinese 'Solid' Eggs (实蛋) | Chinese Cooking Demystified

Solid eggs! A classic at BBQ joints in Northeast China.

0:00 - How can an egg have no yolk?
0:54 - Balut/Penoy culture
1:38 - Making 'Penoy' eggs with a normal egg
2:58 - How to eat, Grilled and Stir Fried
4:15 - Other ways to produce?

INGREDIENTS, SOLID EGGS

* 5 eggs
* 1/2 tbsp water
* 1/2 tsp kansui a.k.a. lye water (枧水) https://www.amazon.com/Potassium-Carbonate-Sodium-Bi-Carbonate-Solution/dp/B07NVZKYNF/
* 1/2 tsp salt

PROCESS, SOLID EGGS

1. Using the large end of a chopstick, crack the narrow side of the egg. Make a hole with the narrow side of the chopstick, clean up the hole with a pair of tweezers. Remove the egg.

2. Rinse the egg shells (not shown in video).

3. Add the water, kansui, and salt to the eggs. Beat in a zigzag motion so as not to incorporate too much air. Once no stray strands of egg white remain, strain. Knock the bowl a couple times against the table ala a cake batter to let some air bubbles float to the top. Skim off the bubbles.

4. Add the egg back into the shells. Put the eggs in little bowls or ramekins to stand up nicely. Steam over a low flame for 20 minutes.

5. Transfer the eggs to cool water, peel.

INGREDIENTS, SOLID EGG STIR FRY

* 5 solid eggs
* Aromatics: 1/4 sliced onion, 2 cloves minced garlic
* Spices: 1/2 tbsp chili powder (辣椒面), 1/2 tbsp cumin powder (孜然面)
* Soy sauce (生抽), 1 tsp
* Seasoning: 1/4 tsp sugar, ~1/16 tsp MSG (味精)
* Herbs: 15g chopped scallion, 15g chopped cilantro
* Toasted sesame seeds, ~1 tsp

PROCESS, STIR FRY

1. Slice the solid eggs into ~4 slices, then cut each slice in half.

2. To stir-fry, first longyau: piping hot wok, add ~1 tbsp oil, shut off the heat, give it a swirl to get a nice nonstick surface. Flame on high, add in the eggs and the aromatics. Stir fry until the eggs begin to blister, 1-2 minutes, then add in the spices. Fry til fragrant, ~1 minute, then swirl in the soy sauce and add in the seasoning. Quick mix, add in the herbs, another quick mix, heat off, add the toasted sesame seeds.

CUMIN BBQ SEASONING

Full video of this season mix is here: https://youtu.be/cq5HPbUYuZ4

* 5 tsp cumin seeds (孜然)
* 2.5 tsp toasted sesame seeds (芝麻)
* 1 tsp fennel seed (小茴香)
* 1 tsp toasted chili powder (辣椒粉) -or- cayenne pepper is ok
* 1 tsp salt
* 1/2 tsp MSG (味精)

To prepare the cumin: Put 5 tsp of cumin seeds into a spice grinder and blitz for ~10-20 seconds til "half ground".

To prepare the sesame seeds: Toast some sesame seeds over medium flame for ~5 minutes until deepened in color and you can hear some light popping sounds. Give a very light pound in a mortar to just crack them open a touch.

To prepare the fennel seed: Put 1 tsp fennel seed into a spice grinder and blitz until fine.
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Ok! so b-roll thank you and credit time. First off, huge thank you to Mark Wiens - the balut footage was from his Quiapo market video. Excellent video:

https://youtu.be/C1EwhDGdv14

Footage of the making of the penoy eggs is courtesy of the channel "JR the entrepreneur":

https://youtu.be/MiRiWEfV7xs

And finally the picture of the penoy egg is via the blog Philippine Food Illustrated, who has a nice introduction here:

https://pinoyfoodillustrated.blogspot.com/2017/08/pinoy.html

And check out our Patreon if you'd like to support the project!
http://www.patreon.com/ChineseCookingDemystified

Outro Music: คิดถึงคุณจัง by ธานินทร์ อินทรเทพ
Found via My Analog Journal (great channel): https://youtu.be/GHaL5H-VYRg