Anh Anh’s Salted Eggs
My mom, Anh Anh, grew up as a Chinese refugee in Vietnam and moved to the United States when she was 20 years old. Her cooking style is a fusion of both Vietnamese and Cantonese cuisines. Her potions and cooking magic usually happens in the basement kitchen. Downstairs is a landscape of endless supply of laundry detergent, dish soaps and jars of salted eggs scattered around the corners of the kitchen.
As I get older, my dream is to encapsulate all her concoctions in a book so I can recreate and eat the delicious food of my childhood. It’s difficult to document because she doesn’t believe in quantifying ingredients. “Mommy-ah, how many cups?”—“Just eyeball it” “How do I know it’s done?”—“When it tastes ready!”
With that being said, this is a simplified version of how to make salted eggs. I eat it in a variety of ways: with rice porridge, steamed with ground pork, or sometimes just the steamed egg alone. To each their own, however the egg yolk is really what makes this dish shine. It packs so much umami and elevates a simple dish into a more nuanced complexity. The best thing about this recipe is that it teaches you patience. Being able to share with friends from a large batch is a plus.
Despite my mom’s resistance to quantifying her own recipe, when I tell her I’ve documented and replicated it for her (even tweaked it a bit on my own), though she won’t compliment or say I’ve done a great job—I know deep down that she’s proud of me.
Anh Anh’s Salted Eggs
Ingredients
2 repurposed 32oz kimchi containers
12 chicken eggs
1 quart water
1/4 cup sea salt
1/2 cup of Shao Hsing cooking wine (optional)
Method
First gently wash the eggs in water. Make sure the eggs are fully dried before you place them in the container.
Next bring the quart of water to a boil and stir in the salt until dissolved.
Once the water is fully cooled and the eggs are dry, add each egg individually into the glass container.
Pour the salted water into the jar and make sure your eggs are fully submerged.
Cover the jar and store in a cool area at room temperature for 30 days. Depending on the size of the egg it can take from 30 to 50 days to finish the brining process.
After 30 days you can remove an egg to see if it’s in a good state. If the yolk is firm and yellow-orange in color they’re ready! Remove from water and store the remaining eggs in the fridge.
Recipe by Anh Anh Huynh
Text and Illustration by Shirley Huong Wong
Photography by Justin Wong