Soy sauce eggs or shoyu tamago

Home-made soy sauce eggs or shoyu tamago in salad in salad | H is for Home

I’ve been looking after our neighbours’ chickens again – I refer to them ‘the ladies’. Each morning, they rush to greet me at the door of the coop, clucking and cooing with anticipation of breakfast. The 9 of them then follow me around, getting under my feet, as I replenish their drinking water and collect the eggs.

Boiling eggs | H is for Home

Between them, they lay 6 or 7 eggs per day – I think there’s one or two that aren’t pulling their weight! After a few days, the pile of eggs really mounts up. Each time I look after them, I attempt new recipes to avoid a glut.

Peeled boiled eggs and soy sauce liquor | H is for Home

Soy sauce eggs or shoyu tamago are traditionally eaten with ramen (Japanese noodle soup), which I love.

Soy sauce eggs in jars of liquor | H is for Home

Yesterday, I had a couple quartered atop a salad with a little drizzle of soya vinaigrette. Today for lunch, I had them with a bowl spicy noodles.

Bowl of spicy noodles, broth and soy sauce egg | H is for Home

What would you make with a surplus of eggs?

Click here to save the recipe to Pinterest

Soy sauce eggs or shoyu tamago

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 6 hours

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 6 hours, 10 minutes

Number of servings: 6

See more about Edamam on

Soy sauce eggs or shoyu tamago

Ingredients

  • 6 eggs
  • 1L/ 34fl oz water
  • 3tbsp soy sauce
  • 2tbsp rice wine vinegar
  • 1tsp Chinese five spice
  • 1tsp Szechuan peppercorns
  • ½tsp ground cinnamon
  • ½tsp ground ginger
  • 2 whole cloves
  • 2 star anise 'stars'
  • 1 green cardamom pod
  • 1tbs palm sugar (you can use brown sugar)soy sauce eggs ingredients

Method

  1. Boil the eggs the way you like them - I like them fairly hard-boiled which takes about 6-7 minutes. Cool by plunging into cold water, then remove the shells. Put them into a large, sterilised Kilner jar, cover and set aside
  2. In a large saucepan, add all the other ingredients and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar
  3. Remove from the heat and carefully pour over the boiled, peeled eggs
  4. Allow to cool slightly before snapping the lid shut
  5. Cool to room temperature before transferring to the fridge. Allow to marinate for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight

Notes

If you don't have all the different spices, just use the ones you do - the soy sauce and Chinese five spice are the most important. You can reuse the liquor, bringing it up to the boil prior to each use. The flavour develops and gets better over time!

What to do with an egg glut

'What to do with an egg glut' blog post banner

egg glut - pile of eggs on antique wooden egg tray

Last week, we looked after our neighbours’ chickens while they went on holiday. We’ve done it before but, back then, the brood was only about a third of the size it is now.

Some of the neighbours' chickens

Before long, we had an ever-growing pile of eggs mounting up in our kitchen. With each passing day, another 6 eggs or so were being added. What to do with our new-found egg glut?

Boiled eggs in a saucepan

I didn’t want to have either leftover yolks or leftover whites going to waste, so I looked into making dishes that used whole eggs.

Here’s one savoury and one sweet recipe I decided on…

  • Pickled eggs – We’ve both lived nearly half a century but neither of us has ever eaten a pickled egg! They never look appetising sitting on a shelf, in jars, in a hot chip shop, for who knows how long! I didn’t have whole allspice, only ground, so my pickle liquid became a bit cloudy with a little sediment. You’re meant to leave them for a month before you eat them – so we’ll report back then.
  • Egg custard – This was a little disappointing to be honest – a bit unexciting. It had nothing over a traditional egg custard tart baked in a pastry case. Transforming it into either a crème caramel or crème brûlée are other good options.

Pickled eggs
Serves 7
Ingredients
  1. 7 hard-boiled eggs
  2. ½tbs chilli flakes
  3. 1 pint distilled malt vinegar
  4. 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, rough chopped
  5. ½tbs white peppercorns
  6. ½tsp whole allspiceHome-made pickled eggs ingredients
Add ingredients to shopping list
If you don’t have Buy Me a Pie! app installed you’ll see the list with ingredients right after downloading it
Instructions
  1. Tie the spices in a piece of muslin and boil gently in the vinegar for 5 minutes
  2. Pour into a bowl and remove the spices. Leave to cool
  3. Shell the eggs and pack into a sterilised, wide-necked jar
  4. Fill with the cold vinegar to cover the eggs completely. Screw or tie down and leave for a month before eating
Print
H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Egg custard
Serves 4
Ingredients
  1. 568ml/1 pint full fat milk
  2. 4 eggs
  3. 50g caster sugar
  4. 2tsp vanilla extract
  5. fresh nutmegegg custard ingredients
Add ingredients to shopping list
If you don’t have Buy Me a Pie! app installed you’ll see the list with ingredients right after downloading it
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 140ºC/Gas mark 1 and butter a round oven-proof dish
  2. Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat until hot but not actually boiling
  3. In a bowl that's large enough to take the milk as well, whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Then, still whisking, pour in the hot milkadding hot milk to egg mixture
  4. Sit the buttered dish in a roasting tin to make a bain marie. Strain the custard mixture through a sieve into the buttered dish, then grate some nutmeg generously over the topuncooked egg custard
  5. Pour freshly boiled water into the tin, to come about halfway up the baking dish, and gingerly (you don't want slopping and spillage) put it into the oven and cook for 1½ hours. You want the custard to set but only justcooked egg custard
  6. Take the tin out of the oven, and the dish out of the tin, and let the custard cool a little before eating
Print
Adapted from Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home
H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/