Recipe Salted Egg Yolk Prawns

vernplum

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This dish is widespread in Chinese restaurants and 'Tze Char' eateries in Singapore. It doesn't have a lot of ingredients and is quite easy to do though there are a couple of stages, one of which involves deep-frying, though that is very fast.

Salted Duck Eggs are available in Asian supermarkets and make sure you choose the right kind - they are distinct from 'Century Eggs' which are black inside and quite often also using duck eggs. Round here they come cooked and uncooked, in which case you have to hard boil them.

This dish comes together fast once the marinade and deep fry stages are over, so ensure your ingredients are mis en place.


Ingredients

300g peeled and deveined large tail-on prawns/shrimp​
Marinade
1 small chicken egg white​
1/3 tsp salt​
2/3 tsp light soya sauce​
1 tbsp cornflour​
1/4 tsp ground white pepper​
Coating/frying
1/3 cup cornflour for coating​
1/2 litre vegetable oil for deep frying​
Sauce and finishing
1 sprig curry leaves (about 15-20 leaves)​
1 large clove of garlic, sliced finely​
5 small shallots, sliced​
2 red birdseye chilis (chili padi) sliced​
2 salted duck egg yolks (from 2 hard boiled salted duck eggs), finely mashed​
4-8 tbsp of the used deep-frying oil​


Method

  1. Mix together all the marinade ingredients and coat the prawns well in it. Marinate in the fridge for 1 hour. 10 minutes before pulling the prawns out of the fridge, start getting your deep-frying oil up to 160 Celsius.
  2. Remove the prawns from the fridge and dredge them lightly in the 1/3 cup of cornflour in a bowl. Deep fry them in batches for about 45 seconds each till they are just golden brown. Drain them and keep them to the side.
  3. Take about 4 tablespoons of the deep frying oil and put into a wok. Fry the curry leaves, garlic, shallots and chilis for about 1 minute on a medium heat.
  4. Add in the mashed duck egg yolks and stir into the oil until it is creamy and frothing. You may need to add a few more tbsp of extra oil to make it slightly runnier (this is a matter of taste - I like mine a bit dryer so added 2 tbsp). Cook it for another 30 seconds.
  5. Add in the fried prawns; stir fry and toss for another 30 seconds to heat them through and get them well coated. Transfer all to a plate and serve immediately (usually with white rice).


Duck eggs are a pale blue:

IMG_8881.jpg


The marinade ingredients (the chicken egg white is already in with the prawns):

IMG_8869.JPG



Stick the marinating prawns in the fridge for an hour:

IMG_8870.jpg


Sauce ingredients:

IMG_8871.JPG


The prawns after a quick dredge in the cornflour and a flash deep fry (try to resist eating them at this stage!).

IMG_8873.jpg


Start the sauce with a quick fry of the garlic, chilis, etc:

IMG_8874.jpg
 
Last edited:
Check this out. Sunday's episode of Sorted on YouTube. Look at the first food trend in the video...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ILHxZQfNCk


CD

What a coincidence! That lobster looks awesome - I should have done that for my recipe. :D

Yes - Salted Egg was a craze here couple of years ago (and still persists), and was totally done to death on everything - chips, fish skin, burgers...

The fish skin is good though - if you get a chance to try it:

1629700260271.jpeg


HBFS_3x-100_600x_crop_center.jpg
 
Thanks for this. After I saw your post in what did you eat today I spent some time reading different salted egg prawn recipes and they do vary a little bit.
Your recipe sounds better and the write up easier to follow.
I found salted eggs yolks online but think my local(ish) oriental supermarket may well have them.

IMG_5847.jpeg


You have the heady accolade of being bookmarked and printed off for my folder at 7am. Not many recipes get me excited enough to be clicking print at that hour!
I've called it Moss' Salted Egg Yolk Prawns 😆
 
Thanks for this. After I saw your post in what did you eat today I spent some time reading different salted egg prawn recipes and they do vary a little bit.
Your recipe sounds better and the write up easier to follow.
I found salted eggs yolks online but think my local(ish) oriental supermarket may well have them.

View attachment 127426

You have the heady accolade of being bookmarked and printed off for my folder at 7am. Not many recipes get me excited enough to be clicking print at that hour!
I've called it Moss' Salted Egg Yolk Prawns 😆

There's quite a bit of variety yes. In fact yesterday's version was not exactly what I have in this thread as I tried it using a few tbsp of butter added to the sauce oil and substituted minced garlic for the shallots. It came out quite well and I'm sure I'll use both of those in future too.

Screenshot 2025-04-19 at 2.28.14 PM.png
 
There's quite a bit of variety yes. In fact yesterday's version was not exactly what I have in this thread as I tried it using a few tbsp of butter added to the sauce oil and substituted minced garlic for the shallots. It came out quite well and I'm sure I'll use both of those in future too.

View attachment 127427
Cheers Moss.
 
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