Helen, Help Me: Should I Be Cooking with Ostrich Eggs?

Bird flu has made buying chickenhearted eggs truthful unpredictable! Prices are high, and past they’re little again; grocery-store shelves are bare, but lone sometimes! Are determination eggs from different birds that you’d recommend? I’ve heard that a azygous ostrich ovum is large capable to marque an omelette for a full family. —Anonymous, N.Y.C.

Eight years ago, successful the dreamy days erstwhile hen eggs outgo pennies and everyone was blessed each the time, I entered a fugue authorities and bought an emu ovum for twenty-five dollars astatine a Brooklyn Whole Foods. It was a fewer days earlier Thanksgiving dinner, which I would beryllium hosting astatine my flat for a twelve and a fractional assorted relatives, and I was successful a near-manic authorities of prep shopping, fridge organization, and oven-sequencing strategy. The emu egg—a 2 pound, eight-inch ovoid with a sultry teal ammunition mildly speckled successful airy green—seemed similar conscionable the close absurdist last flourish for an already insane endeavor. A azygous emu ovum has the measurement of astir a twelve of its chicken-born analogues: should I marque an tremendous lb cake? A gallon of hollandaise? A deviled ovum arsenic large arsenic the Ritz? In the end, simplicity prevailed erstwhile 1 of my cousins sensibly suggested that we clasp connected to the ovum for brunch the time aft Thanksgiving. Hard-boiled and sliced, the ovum would beryllium the perfect size for a bagel topping—breakfast sandwiches made somewhat jurassic.

Cooking the emu ovum was a amusive small gimmick that I mightiness ne'er bash again. Did you cognize that it takes astir an hr and a fractional to hard-boil an emu egg? Did you cognize that, erstwhile hard-boiled, the yolk is simply a chartreuse-tinged chalky white? That the albumen, subjected to the aforesaid cooking method, is not opaque achromatic but has a benignant of snowy, snotlike translucence? I cognize these things now. It tasted fine, erstwhile we each got past the uncanny-valley fearfulness of thing that was, and yet was not, conscionable a very, precise ample mean egg.

I archer this communicative not to enactment you disconnected considering the anticipation of alternate eggs but to exemplify that egginess is not a universally fungible quality, and the eggs of different vertebrate taxon disagree successful ways beyond volume. I did occasionally wonderment if things would person turned retired much thrillingly with the emu ovum if I’d been much ambitious and gone for thing similar a brushed scramble with pick and chives, oregon a dramatically tonsured brushed boil—with a cereal vessel arsenic an ovum cup, and an full battalion of toast soldiers. Not agelong ago, motivated by nostalgia and a tendency for affectional redress—and, speaking to your question, a tendency to trim my reliance connected the beleaguered chickenhearted egg—I really looked up the terms of emu eggs and was shocked to larn that they’ve been tipping past sixty bucks apiece! Indeed, ovum prices person risen crossed the people Aves arsenic a effect of inflation. So I wouldn’t urge buying alternate eggs arsenic immoderate benignant of applicable measure—especially present that chicken-egg prices look to beryllium coming down. But conscionable for the hellhole of it? Definitely.

Right now, we’re reaching the extremity of emu laying season, but the emu’s cousin, the ostrich, tends to laic astatine the warmer extremity of outpouring and done the summer. Ostrich eggs are astir doubly the measurement of an emu egg, and person a achromatic shell; you tin bargain 1 online close present astatine prices ranging from 50 dollars to $299.99. Truthfully, though, I deliberation there’s conscionable arsenic overmuch drama, and a full batch much fun, to beryllium recovered successful scaling down. Itsy-bitsy quail eggs are cute arsenic each getout, with brown-speckled shells. Each is astir a 3rd the measurement of a chickenhearted egg. Unlike the eggs of their behemothic brethren, quail eggs are successful beauteous dependable request by restaurants and different high-end institutions, truthful they’re comparatively casual to find. A astonishing proportionality of New York market stores tends to transportation them—and not conscionable the fancy-pants markets! They’ve got them astatine my local!—shelved close adjacent to the chickenhearted eggs successful wide integrative cartons of eighteen, mostly priced astir 5 dollars. Here, again, the champion determination is not to fold the eggs into barroom batter oregon whip them into a meringue. (Can you ideate the tedium of separating retired each those tiny yolks?) You privation to service them successful a mode that emphasizes their silly, marvellous little-ness. I emotion to boil quail eggs—cook them for astir 3 minutes, past daze them successful crystal h2o to halt the cooking process, which makes them easier to peel and preserves the tenderness of the yolk. Serve them simply sliced successful fractional lengthwise, a cardinal of them connected a plate—an Argos of yellowish eyes—with a spot of brackish and blistery condiment connected the side.

I’m besides fond of duck eggs and goose eggs: these are miracles of flavorful, fatty yolks, easy findable astatine Asian supermarkets. Cook and devour them conscionable arsenic you would a chickenhearted egg, though depending connected the look you’re undertaking, you mightiness find that the spirit is simply a small rounder, the colour a small richer. The yolks are some larger and fattier than those of chickenhearted eggs, making them a imagination for baking (akin to utilizing higher-butterfat European food alternatively than modular American stuff). The yolks besides marque for magnificent, lusty, sunshine-yellow pasta; if you privation to effort it retired earlier you enactment successful the enactment yourself, plaything by Maxi’s connected Mott Street, an unbeatable Hong Kong-style edifice that tends to gully large crowds astir lunchtime, and get a vessel of the duck-egg noodles successful a affluent pork-bone broth. ♦