Bean curd with preserved eggs Hubei style

Here is yet another one of those incredibly simple yet dazzling combinations from the Yangtze River area, and this also has to be one of my favorite things to eat... but only if it’s done right, as they do in Hubei province.

The one place we always could count on for the best version was a wonderful mid-priced restaurant in downtown Taipei right near book store alley. Fuxingyuan was an unpretentious yet perfect beacon for East Chinese food. We became such regular customers that as soon as we walked in the door, the cook would prepare this dish just the way I liked it – with an extra egg – and it would be set on our table within seconds after we’d been poured hot tea.

Generally referred to as simply pidan doufu, or bean curd with preserved eggs, this stunning contrast in black and white relies completely on the excellence of the ingredients, the balanced ratio of tofu to eggs, and an unobtrusive yet tangy sauce topped with simple greenery. 

Of supreme importance are the bean curd, which has to be the soft, custardy type (nen doufu, or tender tofu), and the eggs, which in the most perfect of all worlds are the kind called songhua, or pine flower, because of the crystalline patterns that form under the shell and tell you that this is one perfect egg, as the whites will be perfectly tender and the yolks just the right balance of solid and smoosh. (There's no guarantee whether you'll end up with pine flowers... it's sort of the luck of the draw, but celebrate if you do.)

Hot sesame oil notching up the flavors

This egg has a bad rap because of its appearance and its touristy names: “thousand-year-old,” “century” or even “millennium” egg. 

I mean, really. They’re not at all old and in fact should be enjoyed while they are relatively fresh, as the eggs dry out if left to their own devices. I call them preserved eggs because of how they are made: fresh duck eggs are coated with a combination of quicklime, ash, clay, salt, and rice hulls, allowed to rest for a couple of weeks or months while the chemicals work their magic, and when opened, the whites will have turned a crystal-clear dark amber, while the yolks are a runny grayish-green.

I do realize that encountering an egg with this sort of coloration the first time around may be startling.  But you’ll find that the whites are actually very much like a gentle aspic, while the creamy centers have a gently yolk flavor with a rich, buttery undercurrent. 

Light refracting through the "white"

A lot of times, eating strange things requires a leap of faith and logic. For example, one time I was having lunch in Taipei with an American friend, Janet, and her young daughter. The little girl was at that very finicky stage, and she immediately was very grossed out by our serving of pidan doufu. So I suggested to little Katie that this was egg jello; to my surprise, she bought it and then just dove in like she ate it every day. 

When we lived in Taiwan, old-fashioned grocers would have at least one big brown urn near the door with yellow dragons running around it, and inside would be these eggs. They were sold still encased in those hard little coffins of nubby clay, and I would wash them off under running water before peeling off the bluish speckled shells, hoping that I’d be rewarded with pine blossoms for my effort. And when I was, there would be three eggs that night.

Bean curd with pine flower preserved eggs 
Sōnghuā pídàn dòufŭ 松花皮蛋豆腐 

Hubei
Serves 4 to 6 as an appetizer

2 or 3 preserved eggs (see Tips)

1 box soft bean curd (see Tips)

Boiling water

1 to 2 tablespoons Sichuan pickled tuber (zhacai)

1 green onion, green leaves only

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped cilantro

½ teaspoon sea salt
1½ teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon rice or apple vinegar

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Elegant & soothing

6 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

1. Peel the eggs, rinse them gently to remove any tiny bits of shell, and slice them into thin wedges.

2. Bring a small saucepan half full of water to a boil and slip in the soft bean curd; bring the water to a boil again, then discard the water and carefully rinse the hot bean curd under cool tap water. Drain it and place the square on a cutting board. Cut the square lengthwise in half, and then cut it crosswise into thin pieces (about an eighth to a quarter of an inch wide). Use your cleaver to gently lift up the fragile slice and fan them out on a rimmed serving plate. Arrange the sliced eggs on top.

3. Rinse the pickled tuber and chop it very finely. Thinly slice the green onion leaves. Scatter the pickles, green onion, and cilantro over the top of the eggs. Put the salt, sugar, vinegar, and sesame oil in a wok over high until they bubble furiously; taste the sauce and adjust seasoning, if necessary, and then drizzle this over the greens to wilt them. Serve slightly warm.

Tips

Avoid pidan from Mainland China, as I have always found them hard and tasteless. They definitely would work better on a ping pong table than on a dining table. 

Some Taiwanese eggs

Taiwan's pidan are often incredibly good, with the egg whites whisper tender and the yolks soft and runny and dark, rather than the tough ochre centers of Mainland eggs. The brand I've come to enjoy the best packs the eggs in a little yellow cardboard egg crate. They say there's no lead in them and they taste clean. 

I store these eggs in the refrigerator and try to use them within a couple of weeks. Of course, always use common sense when you're dealing with preserved or any other kind of eggs: smell them when you crack them open and look the eggs over carefully. Preserved eggs should not smell like much of anything before you cut them open, since the whites are very bland.

Pidan should also look solid and not have any questionable liquid running around in them, as that's a sign of spoilage. Do keep in mind that if these eggs hang around too long, even with refrigeration, they can dry out. 

So, keep them chilled, and if you haven't dealt with them for a while, open one up the day before you plan to serve them. And if you are a lover of Congee like I am, serve them sliced into wedges in your rice porridge with some crunchy Fried Peanuts – the perfect breakfast or late night snack whenever it's cold outside.

Strangely beautiful

Buy non-GMO, organic bean curd whenever you can. You can use either “soft” or “extra soft” tofu here, but while the extra soft kind will taste very good, it might look a mess, since it tends to fall apart at the merest suggestion of pressure.

That's why the bean curd is quickly blanched in this recipe: to both gently firm it up a bit on the outside, which makes it easier to slice, and also to remove any scent of the packaging.

If you don't have or can't find zhacai in your area, anything crunchy and tart will do, like the Pickled Long Beans we looked at recently.

Different areas of China make their own versions of this classic. In Taiwan, for example, the egg is often served whole on top of a square of tender bean curd, and then either pork floss (rousong) or shaved dried bonito (katsuobushi, which suggests lingering Japanese influence there) are cascaded on top, often with a healthy drizzle of oyster sauce all around instead of the vinegar and hot oil.

An elegy to the preserved egg, plus a warning on Chinese food imports

Last week or so I talked about my reasons for using balsamic vinegar instead of Chinese vinegar. And today, the Huffington Post filed a story that is pretty damning about Chinese edible exports to the U.S. (Read the linked reports at the bottom of that page for more nightmares.)

This HuffPo story tells us that "food imports from China have been steadily increasing along with other imports. The total value of Chinese food imports stood at $4.7 billion in 2007, up from $1 billion a decade earlier. And according to [Food Safety News], the FDA inspects just 1.5% of all the food that arrives from China. This means that 98.5% of the food we import from China could conceivably harbor pathogens."

As one person recently asked me after reading that post about vinegar, what's safe anymore? Honestly, I don't know everything that you should avoid, but I personally don't touch anything that has been pickled or brined because of the possibility of lead glazing in the fermentation jars, and I also am using less of their other prepared foods. 

But although I can't cover every subject, let me talk to you of eggs first, since these can be so dangerous when poorly done and yet so utterly divine when prepared the right way...

Salted eggs, or xiandan, are duck eggs that have been soaked in a strong saline solution. This turns the shells a beautiful, pale, robin's egg blue, the whites become a thick and salty gel, and the yolks hunker down into a hard and salty center. 

They're all over Chinese markets this time of year so that home cooks can stuff them into their moon cakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on September 12 in 2011. As more and more Chinese have moved into our area, local producers of salted eggs have turned up, and they are pretty decent. However, salted eggs are really easy to make, you can use your own organic eggs of any variety (except perhaps ostrich eggs), and I'll show you how to make your own in the very near future.

The other uniquely Chinese take on the egg that I adore is preserved eggs (pidan in Chinese, and also called for some touristy reason "thousand-year-old eggs" in English), but the ones I've had from Mainland China have invariably been hard and tasteless. They definitely would work better on a ping pong table than on a dining table. 

Pidan and packaging

Taiwan's pidan, though, are often incredibly good, with the egg whites whisper tender and the yolks soft and runny and dark, rather than the tough ochre centers of Mainland eggs. On the right is a picture of Taiwanese preserved eggs and the brand that I've come to enjoy the best. They say there's no lead in them (imagine having to assure your customers that your eggs are unleaded!), and they taste clean. 

I store these eggs in the refrigerator and try to use them within a couple of weeks. Of course, always use common sense when you're dealing with preserved or any other kind of eggs: smell them when you crack them open and look the eggs over carefully.  The eggs should not smell sulfurous at all. In fact, preserved eggs don't smell like much of anything before you cut them open, since the whites are very bland. These pidan should also look solid and not have any questionable liquid running around in them, as that's a sign of spoilage. Do keep in mind that if these eggs hang around too long, even with refrigeration, they can dry out. 

So, keep them chilled, and if you haven't dealt with them for a while, open one up the day before you plan to serve them. And if you are a lover of congee like I am, serve them sliced into wedges in your rice porridge with some crunchy fried peanuts - the perfect breakfast or late night snack whenever it's cold outside.

The absolutely most beautiful egg you will ever see is what the Chinese call a "pine flower" pidan. Crystallized patterns form over the surface of the egg sort of like frost on a window, as can be seen in the photo at the top of this column. I always get terribly excited whenever my preserved eggs turn out to have this beauty mark called songhua, as I'll know that the whites will be perfectly tender and the yolks just the right balance of solid and smoosh.


Today's recipe is one that I served at Diana Kennedy's party last year. It was a big hit, even with those who had never tried preserved eggs before. I made them a bit chichi by serving them on Belgian endive leaves, which serves both as an edible container and a crunchy foil for the soft egg, and then I showered them with julienned young ginger and some of my lovely garlicky vinegar. Easy and fast and totally delicious!

My chichi egg boats

Preserved eggs with garlic vinegar 
Tangsuanzhi pidan  糖蒜汁皮蛋 
Nouvelle Hubei

Serves 6 to 8 as an appetizer

4 preserved eggs (pidan), chilled
2 to 3 heads Belgian endive
1 finger young ginger, or half a finger older ginger
Garlic vinegar from Sweet Pickled Garlic Cloves
Sea salt or fleur de sel

1. Peel the eggs and wipe all of the shell off of the surface of the eggs. Take time to admire any "pine flowers" that happen to occur on the surface. Use a very sharp and thin knife to cut the eggs lengthwise into quarters, cleaning off the knife between slices.

2. Arrange 16 of the largest and prettiest endive leaves on a platter. Place an egg wedge on each one. 

3. Either cut the young ginger into very fine shreds, or peel the older ginger and julienne finely. Scatter the ginger over the egg wedges. Sprinkle a teaspoon or more of the garlic vinegar over the egg wedges and then place tiny pinches of salt on each one. Taste one of the egg boats and adjust the seasoning as needed. Serve cold.