Quail Egg Siu Mai Dim Sum Dumpling 鵪鶉蛋燒賣

We continue with our Dim Sum series today with this classic Quail Egg Siu Mai dumpling 鵪鶉蛋燒賣.  It’s seldom offered in dim sum restaurants nowadays, not sure why cuz these are the most delightful and delicious little dumplings.  

The Quail Egg Siu Mai features the same fragrantly savoury pork and shrimp filling of its much better known cousin, the iconic Siu Mai 燒賣 dumpling, but it has the added lovely surprise of a perfectly cooked little egg wrapped inside.  I still remember my wonder and delight the first time I ate one of these, it was so perfect, the combination of the smooth slippery egg and the luscious juicy meat!

Chinese Salt Baked Quail Egg 鹽焗鵪鶉蛋

Cheep, cheep!  Presenting our interpretation of a 'natural' Easter: this year we bring together the idea of Easter eggs and the idea of street food culture in Hong Kong.  Our Easter nest is full of tiny naturally speckled eggs!  

Namely the delicate Chinese Salt Baked Quail Eggs, or 鹽焗鵪鶉蛋, usually found at your local street hawker, these roasty, just salty wee eggs come still piping hot in a paper bag.  There's nothing quite like it to have in your pocket on a windy day to warm your fingers with!  

Sweet Pickled Purple Quail Eggs

It's time for Halloween, little ghosts and zombies are waiting around every corner, greedy outstretched hands hungry for candy, candy, and more candy!  Instead of packing yet another bag of sweet candy for my little girl to take to school to share with her little goblin and princess friends, I thought to make a more healthy sweet Halloween treat.

I ended up making these quick, easy, fun little snacks, the Sweet Pickled Quail Eggs, naturally colored a lovely ghoulish Halloween purple with the dye from purple sweet potato.  "These are monster eggs," I whispered in a scary voice to my little girl and she loved them, gobbled up 3 in one go and then asked for more and we are making another big batch for school!