November 2011

First Time for Everything

Last week my friend Tammi brought me some duck eggs. I am not usually a “food virgin”, but duck eggs were admittedly a first for me. I was very excited and a little intimidated too.

On the outside they looked like very large chicken eggs. Upon cracking the egg, I noticed that they had a thicker shell. And it’s that tough, thick shell gives the duck egg a great benefit – a longer shelf life. The egg yolk was larger and the white less watery in comparison to that of a chicken egg.

It was the middle of the day so I decided to have breakfast for lunch and made a sunny side up duck egg. It took a bit longer to cook than a chicken egg due to the larger yolk. I loved the richness (yes that means more fat too) and deep golden color of the yolk, but the white turned out a bit dry. I thought that mixing the white and the yolk together would deliver a better result. So then I decided to make a frittata. It turned out so buttery and bold!

I truly fell in love with the duck eggs when I used them in my baking. My cake rose much higher (due to high protein content), was moist with an amazing golden color and had a delightful velvety texture. The remaining of my dozen of eggs was used on pan cakes, cookies and a pound cake. The result was consistently delicious, maybe even too good – all the cakes and cookies were devoured as soon as I put them on the table!

So now I can say that I am no longer a duck egg virgin. And who knows what kind of eggs the future will bring to my table... ostrich? Bring it on!