I promised myself that I will improve on the salted egg sauce from the earlier Salted Egg Crayfish recipe. For that recipe, I used salted egg yolks which were steamed and mashed, along with pumpkin puree, no additional liquid, and too much evaporated milk. The result? Too thick, creamy and buttery, and I couldn’t really taste the salted eggs nor feel its texture.

Yesterday, I decided to practise some more. I had suspected that steaming the egg yolks beforehand would take away some of the flavour and all of its texture, so I worked with raw yolks today. Instead of steaming, I cracked the egg yolks into a dish and tried as much as I could to mash them with a fork. Because raw salted egg yorks are firm, sticky and ‘gluey’, you’ll need to get a spoon ready to scrape them off the fork back into the dish, then repeat. You don’t have to spend a life time doing it – we’ll still need to break them up some more in the wok. Cooking the egg yolks directly in the wok without the extra step of steaming them = more salted egg flavour and a more sandy texture – the way it should be.

Another thing I did differently was add more liquid. Although I loved the taste and fragrance of evaporated milk, adding it without a good water:evaporated milk ratio results in not much gravy to speak of. I had a bowl of chicken stock on standby and added it bit by bit til the consistency was right. I would say the addition of stock made a huge difference to the dish.

With more liquid, adding evaporated milk became a less stressful affair. I didn’t have to worry about the sauce clumping up because I know I can add more chicken stock if I had to. This recipe is pretty straightforward. In short: fry curry leaves and chilli padi in butter and oil, add salted egg yolks and break them up with your spatula, add chicken stock bit by bit, followed by the evaporated milk and sugar, do a taste test at this point, and finally toss in your crispy squid.

I am pretty happy with this version. The flavour of the salted egg yolks was not overpowered by the butter and evaporated milk, and I simply loved the sandy texture.. as you break down each morsel of salted egg in your mouth, the flavour becomes more and more intense and goes straight to your brain. This sauce will go great with fried chicken and prawns. Yums. I don’t really eat sotong. I should really have cooked this with juicy, fat prawns instead. What was I thinking? The husband almost licked the plate clean! He tan dio lor. I hope you like this, but please don’t eat this often. Deep fried squid, butter, salted eggs and evaporated milk too many times a month = a recipe for heart attack. Don’t do it! But since you won’t listen, what can I say but enjoy the recipe!

The post Salted Egg Sotong (Squid) appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

(update 22 March: click here for a better version of salted egg sauce!)

This is my experimental dish! I recently posted a salted egg yolk prawns dish that I cooked for reunion dinner, using Knorr’s salted egg yolk powder. It didn’t wow me although it looked good. I will share that recipe in another post.

Many of you asked me for a salted egg yolk recipe from scratch. Ok! I decided to experiment. I got a 1kg bag of frozen crayfish for $16/pack one Friday night and also bought a can of evaporated milk and a really small pumpkin (129g only! from Cold Storage). I didn’t even know it came in such a small size. You could also use butternut squash. The curry leaves are from my own backyard corridor, and I always have butter in my chiller and chilli padi in my freezer. I was ready to cook my salted egg crayfish!

Because I’m not a fan of deep frying (waste oil waste calories), I decided to air fry the crayfish instead to get it crispy. Dredge the crayfish in corn flour, shake off excess, then let it sit for about 3-5 minutes. Spray some oil on top before air frying and this is what you get:

The ENTIRE kitchen smelled heavenly! I stole a piece to erm, test, and the cray fish turned out so bouncy and tasted so crispy and fresh. I am glad I didn’t skip this step!

The dish was yummy but a little too thick, due to the addition of pumpkin puree and too little liquid. Pumpkin puree gives it a rich, golden colour, and a more creamy base, but as you can see, the gravy isn’t as fluid as I would have liked. It’s kind of finger licking though! I like the taste, but I would shell the crayfish in future although presentation wise, cooking them with shell looks better. Using deshelled crayfish (or even large prawns) would ensure every morsel of flesh is coated with the yummy sauce. I can imagine it with rice!

I’m on a quest to make the best salted egg crayfish dish ever. I would add some stock to make the gravy more fluid next time, although I think if you remove the shell, it’ll actually be just nice. I must, must, must make this work! Stay tuned for my tweak. Until then, here’s my first experiment recipe! Enjoy :)

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