A Guide To Eggs That Aren’t Hen Eggs

If you write “eggs” on your grocery list, you most likely are referring to those that came from a chicken. Though hen eggs are an almost perfect food, there’s a whole world of other egg-citing options out there.

Photo by Pauline Mak.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/07/grate-egg-yolks-like-cheese-for-a-rich-flavour-topping/” thumb=”http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/1301591606290447789.jpg” title=”Grate Egg Yolks Like Cheese For A Rich Flavour Topping” excerpt=”Few foods would not benefit from the addition of an egg. Burgers, pizza, pasta and even last night’s leftover Thai food all seem a bit more rich and decadent with a perfectly cooked egg on top. “Put an egg on it” isn’t a new culinary tip, but grating the yolk over a meal — as you would cheese — is a completely new to me, and it is blowing my egg-loving mind.”]

Lucky Peach has rounded up a whole bunch of eggs from all types of birds, but these are three of my personal favourites:

• Quail: Quail eggs are tiny (about one fifth the size of a chicken egg) and are “gram for gram” “more densely nutritious than chicken eggs, with more B vitamins, iron, and zinc”. They also cook up super quickly, taking only two minutes to soft boil and three to hard boil, and make a nice little snack.
• Duck: Duck eggs are prized for their super rich yolks and their protein-packed whites. Not only is a soft-boiled duck egg a thing of absolute beauty, but those whites make super stable meringues and cakes. Not sure what to do with a bunch of yolks? Cure them, my friends. (One thing I would not recommend doing with duck eggs is scrambling them. The resulting texture is weird.)
• Emu: I’ve never actually had an emu egg, but I would like to give one a try. They’re huge — just one egg weighs about the same as a dozen large hen eggs — but they’re surprisingly mild, with “white-to-yolk ratio of one to one”.

Once you work your way through those three, click the link below to explore even more delicious options. Then you’ll be armed with multitude of new ways to put an egg on it.

A Guide to Egg Varieties [Lucky Peach]