Soy-Sauce-Pickled Eggs

By Sam Sifton

Soy-Sauce-Pickled Eggs
Grant Cornett for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Theo Vamvounakis.
Total Time
8 hours
Rating
5(614)
Comments
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Yusuke Shimoki runs Engawa, a tiny bar in Japan. To accompany his sakes, he occasionally serves soy-sauce-pickled egg yolks, which he cures in a mixture of mirin-sweetened soy sauce and a strip of the dried kelp known as kombu. A recipe for it appeared in The Times in 2015, after Shimoki visited the United States. You can marinate the yolks for as little as 6 hours and as long as a couple of days, but they are perhaps best after 8 or 9 hours, when the yolks become creamy, with a slightly firm skin.

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Ingredients

Yield:3 to 6 servings
  • 1cup Japanese soy sauce
  • ¼cup mirin (sweetened Japanese rice wine)
  • 1strip kombu, roughly finger-length
  • 6fresh egg yolks
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

80 calories; 4 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams carbohydrates; 0 grams dietary fiber; 0 grams sugars; 6 grams protein; 2346 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Combine soy sauce, mirin and kombu in a small bowl.

  2. Step 2

    Gently add egg yolks to the soy-sauce mixture, cover and place in refrigerator to cure for six hours, up to two or three days. The yolks will firm up and darken over time, becoming quite hard in three days.

  3. Step 3

    Serve 1, 2 or 3 yolks per person, over steamed short-grained rice.

Tip

Ratings

5 out of 5
614 user ratings
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Comments

Felicia

Hi the recipe is really confusing what does 1⁄4 cup mirin mean?

Kevin

Absolutely. You're relying on the soy sauce for salt and flavor. Tamari still has plenty of both. Just don't try to use a low-sodium version, which won't preserve/dehydrate/"cure" the yolks in the same fashion.

Spatchcock

Spectacular flavor. As another reviewer noted, there is way too much marinade. I halved the recipe, and the half-cup of soy would have easily accommodated six eggs. Good soy sauce is not cheap. Finally, a reviewer said the yokes must be submerged. Alas, they float, so the only way to submerge them would be to place something on top of those rather delicate yokes. Instead, do what another reviewer said: Simply (and gently) turn them over halfway through the pickling. I'll make these often.

Roadster

I think marinating time will vary based on age, size, and freshness of egg.

Shelby

A game changer for evenly marinated whole eggs was placing a paper towel over the brine, it evenly coats it that way. I imagine it'd work well for this, too.

Denise

Can I substitute liquid aminos for the soy sauce?

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