Day 2: Feeling the fear and eating one anyway

Every time I go to my local Chinese emporium I contemplate the salted duck eggs. And every time I decide "another day". For some reason, I've always been squeemish about the thought of eating duck eggs. The thought of eating a preserved one has been even less appealing.

Time to feel the fear and eat one anyway.

A quick bit of research on the Internet showed that they can be eaten with rice congee, a food I've only eaten a few times and had never cooked myself.

The half-dozen packs of plastic-wrapped salted duck eggs are a product of the People's Republic of China. Trying not to think about all of the Chinese food scare stories I've read of late, I braced myself and bought a pack. Hopefully the ducks have been fed something nicer than melamine.

Here's what they look like inside - not very appealing. Thank God they didn't smell.

I also bought some Japanese seasoned vegetables. Who could resist such a cerise temptation?

Well, now that I've tried it, I can. The pickled veges had an appealing crunch, but a weird taste which I think was from Japenese basil, listed as one of the ingredients. Kieran didn't like it either.

Rating: 4

I made the congee as follows:

1 cup long grain white Jasmine rice

9 c home made chicken stock (you could use water but will get a blander result)

1 tsp salt

2 salty duck eggs, diced

Finely chopped spring onion, to taste

1 or 2 drops each of sesame oil and chilli oil, to taste

Wash rice and add to the water along with the salt. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer 1-2 hours until the rice is creamy.

Add duck egg about 15 minutes before cooking is complete.

Serve topped with a sprinkle of spring onion, and the sesame/chilli oils.

It was nice. The duck yolk had a firm, almost granular texture. It's eggier tasting than chicken's eggs, but was not offensive.

Rating 7

Although I want to push some culinary boundaries, foodie flagellation is not the aim of the game. So I bought some yummy looking things too:

We all loved the strawberry gummy chocolates (product of China) and they were hoovered up in seconds. Even Rory tried them, guzzling as many as he could get away with. As Kieran said "they're just like normal lollies"!

Rating: 10

The cassava cake was less successful; stodgy and bland. Mildly coconut flavoured. Kieran, who is having a growth spurt, was happy to take care of all of the leftovers. I think the cassava cake had the potential to be nice, but was probably mass produced on the cheap. I'd have put a little salt in the coconut/glutinous rice base, plus more sugar in the cassava custard topping.

Rating: 5