Black egg anyone?

This is actually one of my favorite childhood foods. Ranks right up there with Chicken Feet at Dim Sum. yum. I'm talking about what is commonly referred to as: Thousand Year Old Egg. {no, it's not really a thousand years old. yeesh.} Sergio and I saw it featured in Fear Factor many moons ago. We gaffawed out loud! I would've won that challenge no sweat!!

It's basically an overripe duck egg that's been preserved. Not really sure what that means. Most "preserved" foods are just too old foods that don't kill you, right? Anyway, I've typically had it in jook (congee). A soupy rice porridge and very comfort food-y in many Chinese households. I always fished around the giant stewing pot for chopped up bits of that inky goodness suspended in the pale white porridge. There was also bits of lean pork. But I always preferred the egg. And if I saw some of that heavenly, creamy yolk -- oh! I would scoop that jewel up quickly like a thief and scurry to my seat at the table to slurp it up, feeling a bit guilty because I had probably stolen more than my share.

I think seeing it on the shelf at Figueroa Produce was so incongruous to me that I bought it out of whimsy a few weeks ago.

Packaged, each egg wears a double coat of thin plastic sleeve. And the half dozen sits in a small Styrofoam box. The lid has little divots for each egg. I immediately thought it would serve perfectly as a tiny paint palette tray. I can at the very least reuse that icky Styrofoam!

The shell is a bit hard.

Look at the pretty snowflake patterns though! I really should have taken a picture of the egg up in the light. The black is actually a really deep amber. And no need to cook the egg itself.

There it is. The delicious creamy center.

I made plain white rice, put a little soy sauce on it and ate it with the egg. Not the whole egg, just one of the halves. Sergio shared the other half with me the next day. He survived. Go ahead, ask him if he liked it.

Click here for a much better description than I just gave it.