Homemade Salted Eggs 自制咸蛋

A few more days will end the long holiday for Eid's break. I love this kind of relaxing holiday with no rush to do or go anywhere. Sort out lot of things for kid and also clear the fridge as much as I can. The best is time come to harvest this homemade salted eggs!  

Remember I bought the nicely seal cooked salted eggs from Melbourne? After I finished them I was looking for the seal cooked salted eggs during my summer break in Malaysia, I couldn't find them! Then I found recipes on how to make our own salted eggs using chicken eggs, yes chicken eggs! With reference to two recipes, Carol and Christine's Recipe I was so happy to try on them... do you know what is the crucial thing to ensure success of brining salted eggs? ...I have two times of experience where the salted liquid turned moldy even I followed the recipe closely, the bottle we used to brine the salted eggs has to be in the right size!! All eggs has to be submersed in the water, if you are using bigger glass bottle and there is space for the eggs to float ... the water will get moldy and fungus particle will grow!! 

Thanks Charis, who has shared her salted eggs making experience with me, she pointed out that she used small glass for brining salted eggs instead of the big one, I changed my glass bottle and the salted liquid in the glass bottle stay clear throughout the 40 days! 

This recipe is just awesome for us who can't buy any salted egg in Qatar. I find that the taste of the salted chicken eggs is just as satisfied as the salted duck eggs, even better with no chemical in the salted eggs! Now I can cook a few Chinese dishes with my salted chicken eggs!

So happy to see this bright orange red-egg yolk!! On my! It has been more than two years I haven't had a fresh salted egg! 

Recipe from Christine's Recipe (for Chinese version please refer to Carol's website)
Ingredients:
4 cups of water
1 cup of sea salt 
15 chicken eggs, washed and pat dried the eggs
20g rice wine (Used sake, this is important to turn the egg yolk into bright orange red)
One clean glass bottle
2 tsp of peppercorns 
one star anise 

Method

1. Boil the water and sea salt in a pot. Let it cool down completely.
2. Add the sake into the cool down liquid.
3. Pour the liquid into the clean glass bottle.
4. Arrange the clean eggs carefully into the glass bottle. Make sure there is no crack egg!
5. The eggs has to submerse in the water, no floating of eggs. Tightly cover the container and place at room temperature. The brining process is about 30 to 40 days. After 30 days take one egg out and steam on a steamer to see it taste salty enough, but I waited until 40 days to do so. 

6. If you're satisfied with the taste, drain all eggs out and wipe dry. Wrap the eggs with plastic cling, keep in egg carton and place in the fridge. According to Christine, the salted eggs can last a few weeks in the fridge. If we are not using the salted eggs in short period, Carol advice take the egg yolks out and keep in a seal container and place it in freezer.