Hey guys, recently it has been a huge hit about salted egg, and although in the Chinese culture it is usually highly used during Mid Autumn festival, the salted egg flavour has caught the world by storm with the new range of cheezy snacks and dishes, starting with the deep fried fish skins.
Well, I for one am trying to reduce as much deep fried, but I have always been curious about how the sauce has been made, just like the caramel butter sauce chicken.
I would not recommend it as a daily recipe to consume, especially when you are a little on the heavy side.
Nevertheless it is always worth a try.
So I had this salted egg sitting in my fridge for a long time. And usually I prefer to use it as part of the SIEW Mai (steamed meat dumpling) garnish at the top, I have decided to just make a salted egg sauce (if it succeeds) that can be kept in a bottle for dips or mixes later.
One thing I totally forgot to do at first, was to cook the yolk.
Yes you actually do need to thoroughly steam the salted egg yolk so that it is dry and easily to be press into flakes to be used later as part of the ingredient.
Note : if it is half cooked or not thoroughly cooked, it will be harder for you to press it into tiny pieces.
Next would be season the butter with curry leaves.
For those who prefer more flavorful sauce with its fragrance, you can't leave the curry leave ingredient out.
It makes the whole flavour experience less dull with plain old milk and cream and it increases your appetite too.
Note: butter can be easily burnt in high heat, so make sure when you do this it is on slow fire.
Time to add the shredded salted egg!
Once the butter is nicely seasoned it is ready for the cooked salted egg to suck in all the oil.
(yes oil... Starting to feel unhealthy haha)...
You got to keep it on medium low heat while you stir it constantly.
Next, the milk.
Usually recipes will recommend you full cream milk or cream but I have decided to go with evaporated milk. It is less sweet than the condensed milk and I usually prefer this in all my cooking and preparing coffee if I have the luxury.
Paprika, optional.
I had some mild paprika powder with me and to bring that extra savory feel flavour into it.
If you totally do not like tangy spicy feel you can opt this ingredient out.
Depending on how salty your salted egg is, you might require a little more brown sugar.
White sugar wasn't recommended in the recipe so I stuck with it; but you got to keep tasting a little to make sure the sweetness is not over powering, otherwise it will taste too weird.
In the end if you feel you want your sauce to be creamier and smoother, you can opt to add in a little more of the milk or water just to even the sauce out.
And there you go. Once it is cooled you can scoop to a jar before kept in the fridge.
I have mixing with fried tapioca leaves and egg right after it is cooked to be served it helps make the dish taste less bland, because I didn't add anything extra to the tapioca leaf and eggs.
What do you think? Would you opt to try this as a dip or a sauce for chips and snacks?
It could go really well with chinese tea or even beer; because of the contrast of flavours.
I hope you have enjoyed reading my experiment as much as I have enjoyed preparing it.
Oh... In conclusion, was it good? I must say that the sauce by it self can be too strong, but once it is mixed with a bland taste ingredients like plain fried egg and blanched vegetables it gives that little extra kick.