Century egg or a hundred-year egg, called pidan in Chinese, is actually preserved duck egg (though I’ve seen quail ones too). If you look at the ingredients listed, they include duck egg, salt water, tealeave [SIC} and sodium carbonate…
It is made by coating the egg in alkaline clay which hardens around the egg and cures it, preventing it from spoiling and resulting in the creation of a century egg.
I don’t know if there was any truth in what I heard a long time ago but people were saying at the time that they used horse urine to make century eggs and hence, at times, you might find a very strong ammonia smell or to put it bluntly, the smell of pee in the batch of century eggs that you bought. I guess that must be the alkali used and in the case of these that I bought, they used sodium carbonate for that purpose.
The eggs are wrapped in the clay and coated with rice husks…
…so to eat them, those would have to be removed and the eggs must be washed clean like this…
Then, you will have to peel the eggs…
…removing the shell slowly so that you will not spoil the jelly-like egg white…which of course, is not white but a shade of black instead. They say that the best ones would be a shade of orangy or brownish black and are translucent which means that actually, these aren’t too bad, don’t you reckon?
When I was growing up, my father was the only one in the house eating them. The rest of us would not touch it with a ten-foot pole. If I remember correctly, my father would pour soy sauce over them and eat. Then, when my missus joined the family, she went a step further and added ginger, thinly sliced into fine strips and putting those on top of the eggs before pouring soy sauce over all that…
By then, I had already acquired the taste for century eggs and till today, I enjoy eating them especially with porridge…
The soy sauce would go well with the gruel as well (instead of Bovril or Marmite).
My daughter loves century eggs and would often opt for porridge with them when eating at the stalls and shops outside. Thus, we would probably include them as one of the condiments, alongside or instead of salted eggs, on occasions when we have porridge at home.
What about you? You love ’em black eggs?
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 