Week 7 - Century Eggs

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This week I decided to branch out and try something completely different. Century eggs or 1000 year eggs are duck eggs that are buried in clay, ash, salt, lime and rice straw for about three months. This has the effect of preserving the eggs by raising the pH. It also has the effect of turning the yolks green and the whites a translucent brown color. The eggs can be served with pickled ginger root or tofu or a number of other dishes. The can also be eaten raw as an appetizer, which is what I decided to do.

The verdict: There was an odd smell as I peeled it. I sliced it in half and the yolks smelled strongly of cat urine. The whites were rubbery, like Jello made with too little water, but otherwise tasteless. I popped the half into my mouth and as it turns out, the yolks had lots of flavor. And it wasn't good. As a matter of fact, it was downright awful. It had the taste of what I imagine cat urine tastes like. I'm not sure how I even swallowed it. I pitched the other half into the trash. I just couldn't do it. There is no reason that humans should be eating these.

Week 6 - Bamboo shoots

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After the green tea red bean cake thing last week, I went with something that can't miss. I bought bamboo shoots. Although they sell canned bamboo shoots in the super market and they are often in Chinese take out, the bamboo shoots at the Asian market were fresh and whole. The Asian market has bins with items like tofu in water, bamboo shoots in water and cuddle fish. You can use a slotted spoon to scoop them out and put them into bags. They also sell bamboo shoots in the refrigerated aisle.

I sliced the bamboo shoots and stir fried them in my wok with a whole bunch of veggies and tofu. The verdict: It was good of course and the flavor of bamboo shoots is very unique. The bamboo shoots did have a much stronger flavor than I expected. This is probably because they were fresh and because I probably sliced them a little thicker than I've had them before. If you get a chance, try buying them fresh. They're cheaper than the canned stuff and really delicious.

BTW, as a side note, if anyone knows why all of the carrots in the Asian market are absolutely enormous, let me know.

Week 5 - Green tea ice cream

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It was my birthday earlier this week, so I decided to celebrate with ice cream. I picked up a box 0f red bean / green tea ice cream cakes and a container of something "Happy Mouth," which were sesame cookie chunk things. Similar to fried things, I figured that anything mixed with cream and sugar had to taste good. The verdict: Not so good. The sesame things were tasty, but the green tea things, not so much. The ice cream was flavorless, the crust tasted like a communion wafer (think styro foam) and the nice looking red center on the box is actually just a bunch of actual unsweetened beans. To top it all off, the small box of these things was about $6, far more than a good ice cream product at a super market. Out of all of the things I've tried at the Asian market so far, this was the one thing that I assumed would taste good when I got home and it has been the only thing that has been disappointing.