Steamed Pork Patty With Salted Duck Eggs

It goes without saying that fresh salted duck eggs were difficult to come by when I was a kid living in the wilds of upstate New York. My sisters and I always looked forward to dinner when our mother said she would serve hom dan jeng yook baeng, a steamed beef patty.

Traditional Cantonese home cooking often consists of steamed pork patties with salted duck eggs. My mum would make it anytime she had salted duck eggs on hand or found some raw ones at the store.

What Are Salted Duck Eggs?

These days, salted duck eggs are all the rage as a culinary component. Perhaps you’ve seen pumpkin fries or potato chips made with a salted duck egg yolk.

My recollections of childhood, however, could be more elegant. Typically, we hard-boiled them in a pot of boiling water, as you would a conventional egg. We halves them, shell and all, and served them with pao fan, a quick rice porridge that Judy’s family introduced me to. Pao fan is made by stirring together cooked rice and boiling water.

Small pieces of egg are carefully carved out with chopsticks and eaten leisurely alongside congee and perhaps a few other cold dishes.

Similar to the way thousand-year-old eggs are marketed in their cooked and preserved form in cartons, salted duck eggs are sold in their raw form in the same way. The latter is something other than what we’d suggest using in this dish.

Salted duck eggs should be eaten raw, and while they are tougher to come by than other duck eggs, they can be purchased at select Chinese supermarkets.

You can more easily find salted duck egg yolks in vacuum packs. If you only have access to these, you may still use them to make pig patties; just replace the egg whites with water and salt. You shouldn’t try to swap regular egg white for salted duck egg white.

This is different from the kind of meal you bring out with a flourish and expect people to ooh and aah over because of its aesthetic appeal. The oohs and aahs will be entirely justified by the anticipation of its scrumptious tastes.

After the pork is done, some froth and fluids may be on top. That rice goes great with those juices. You can use a spoon to skim off the foam, but it’s not strictly essential. It’s delicious in any case.

These days, salted duck eggs are all the rage as a culinary component. Perhaps you’ve seen pumpkin fries or potato chips made with a salted duck egg yolk.

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces of ground pork (70% lean)
• 4 raw salted duck eggs
• 1 pinch of five spice powder
• 1 pinch of ground Sichuan peppercorn powder
• chopped scallion or cilantro (for garnish)
• 1/3 cup of chopped water chestnuts
• 2 tablespoons of finely chopped scallions
• 2 tablespoons of water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of Shaoxing wine
• 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
• 2 teaspoons of cornstarch
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of grated or finely minced fresh ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil
• 1/4 teaspoon of white pepper

Instructions:

1. Separate the egg yolks and whites by cracking each egg carefully. Place aside. Replace the egg white with 1/2 cup water and 3/4 teaspoon salt if you only have access to seasoned duck yolks.
2. Add the ground pork, granulated sugar, white pepper, ginger, cornstarch, Sichuan peppercorn powder, five spice powder, sesame oil, oyster sauce, water, Shaoxing wine, and egg whites to a shallow dish.
3. Use chopsticks or a rubber spatula to combine all of the ingredients. Don’t stop until the meat has formed a smooth, homogenous paste. The water chestnuts and scallions should be mixed in.
4. Keep marinating for at least half an hour. Move the meat to a final shallow heatproof basin to continue steaming.
5. Separate the duck egg yolks and cut them in half. Place them on top of the beef patty evenly, round side up. Get your steamer ready and start boiling some water.
6. Cover the dish and steam it for 20 minutes. Remove the heat source. Cover and let rest for another 5-10 minutes. Serve with plenty of steaming rice and chopped scallion or cilantro.