Quite Curious

y friend Yizhuo sent me a message asking if I was interested in trying the emu egg she got at the farmer’s market, and of course, I jumped at the opportunity! Who wouldn’t want to try eating a dinosaur-looking egg? (Ok, so as it turns out, plenty of people. But I, being QuiteCurious, was pretty excited.)

Since an emu egg is equivalent to 10-12 eggs, I got some gusty, food-loving people together, threw together a menu, and on Saturday morning, we had a fun emu omelette brunch. It was such a great experience, since most of have never seen - or thought about eating - an emu egg before. We marveled at its beauty, poke and prodded it, and devoured it.

Guess what! Yesterday at the farmers market, we saw a guy with EMU EGGS!! There was only one left so there was only one thing I could do… Add it to my growing repertoire of exotic eggs! Anyhow, I wanted to see if you guys are free sometime this week/end so we can crack (drill) it open.

You’d think that the dark greenish-blue eggs that come out of this creature would taste pretty weird. Just in case you forgot what an emu was, they’re large birds, similar to an ostrich. Most are in Australia, although we have a few farms here in California.

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The Emu Egg

How can anyone have the heart to crack an emu egg? They look so amazing - dark blue-green, with light blue specks and a slightly bumpy texture. So instead of cracking the emu egg, we blew out the insides (video below) to keep the shell in one piece.

I set the table with a “bird/spring” theme in mind. I made a giant emu-sized nest in the center of the table.

The emu egg had a strange oblong shape to it.

It’s like an avocado and an egg popped out a really big baby.

Getting the Insides Out

The egg looked clean, but we washed it anyway.

Marcello is holding the emu egg while Mike drills a hole into it. Because the emu lays eggs standing up, they have a thick shell because they need to withstand the impact of hitting the floor.

He used a smaller drill bit to make a pilot hole, then a larger drill bit on low torque to make the hole larger without cracking the egg.

Ashley, Marcello, and Yizhuo each had a turn blowing out the inside of the egg. Ashley said, “It feels like you’re head’s going to explode.”

The albumen came out first. Mike commented, “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

We thought the yolk was going to come out next, but it ballooned out instead! It was so strange.

Just to make sure the yolk was popped, we stuck a bamboo skewer in it. Well - we also wanted to play with it, too. The insides felt very…thick.

At some point, the insides stopped coming out so we poked and prodded it even more. Blowing on it more ended up working instead.

This is how much came out of ONE emu egg!

Mike beating the eggs to make omelettes.

The beaten egg was very, very thick. Much thicker than chicken eggs - but it cooked up a lot fluffier, too.

The Meal

Now it was time to eat! The weather was beautiful that morning so we had all the doors and windows open. Yusuf and Ashley brought over some fresh fruit, and delicious fruit smoothies for everyone.

We did a make-your-own omelette buffet, with a platter of precooked mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, dandelion greens, sliced turkey, zucchini and cheddar cheese for people to load on.

I tend to like having too many vegetables in my omelette to even fold over, so it turned into a breakfast scramble instead.

I made a quick hash out of the potatoes and sweet potatoes I got from my vegetable box.

I also made my (now) famous, no-yeast cinnamon buns.

I put the cinnamon buns on a plate my mom made for me in her ceramics class. She gave it to me last week for my birthday. It has rabbits on it (of course). Thanks, mom!

We kept the egg in the “nest” while we were eating. It was a great conversation piece. It’s in a mug because it’s still leaking out goo.