Friday April 14, 1995

Thai Easter Eggs

As this is a serious matter I will try not to make any jokes and loose talk but will convey this ancient knowledge directly to you.

Here in the occident, our guest country, sometimes the idea can be heard that the Easter Bunny brings the Easter eggs. We, on the other hand, with our old culture know that this is not true. Even if they are Easter eggs, we are sure that they are laid by a chicken. See my page about the cooking class where I demonstrate this.

Thus we get the main ingredient for our dish from a market, one specializing in milk and egg products being the best. We also need Easter egg color that we can easily find in super markets all over the country at this time of the year. If we want to be really adventurous we can get a big box of crayons. But I have to warn you - this can get out of hand easily.

Armed with all this we get home and bring water to boil in a big pot and add some salt to allow the Easter eggs that we will prepare in it to maintain an unbroken appearance. When the water boils we slowly let the whole Easter eggs glide into the turmoiled water and cook until they are just right. This will usually take about eight to ten minutes.

(Another method that is used by other tribes is to give the Easter eggs into cold water and bring to boil. The eggs are usually good seven to ten minutes after the water starts to be excited.)

We now turn off the heat and drain the water from the pot. This is done by first covering it with it's lid, then firmly stretching a towel over it and wrapping it around the pot handles. With the towel holding the lid in place we move the pot from the stove over to the sink and tilt it to allow the water to escape through the cracks between pot and lid. After a moment we have all the water drained leaving the Easter eggs in the pot. The next step is to rinse the eggs briefly and briskly with cold water. This will make them easier to peel later by the person consuming them. Don't peel them now, that would be very bad taste.

After the eggs are dried and left for half an hour to cool, the difficult part of this recipe really starts. We sit down with potentially the whole family, the Easter egg colors (that we have prepared following the instructions on the package),the crayons and the eggs. All the imagination and phantasy is needed now to paint the Easter eggs as beautiful as nobody ever did before.

Easter eggs are best served hidden somewhere in the house or garden.

If you know western customs you might say that this is not a Thai recipe and you are right. Because I forgot to mention that while we sit around the table to paint the eggs we have to tell Thai stories and sing Thai songs.