Twofer: Labneh & preserved duck egg

First off, labneh. Labneh is a yogurt that has been strained. It's supposed to be more like cheese than cream, but preserve the sour-ish flavoring of yogurt. I got Tazah brand, which is stored as balls in oil, very similar to feta. The feta comparison is apt, since it's usually eaten in similar fashion, spread or draped on crackers & bread.

I tried labneh over with homemade pitas, olives, lettuce, and artichokes. In the end, I'd rather have feta. There's not as assertive a taste in labneh as in cheese, but what is there is not very good. It's fairly salty and dry, with the consistency of slightly wet cornmeal. Most wasabi is creamier. I may try it out for some cooking later (pizzas maybe?), but I'm not too taken with it. Perhaps the supermarket brand is just not up to the task? Anyone have a labneh testimonial?

I'm eating the second pick right now, and this one's a doozy. These are preserved duck eggs, hard core (HARDCORE!).



Also called century eggs, they're essentially a hard boiled egg, but instead of boiling, they pack them into alkaline material, where they "cure". As you can see, the curing process gives them a rather striking color.


They're more brown-translucent when you hold them to the light, then they look like a Sankara stone ("Shorty! Lao Chee, la tu tyun ta").


They look even creepier from the inside. As for the taste, it's pretty much what you expect: like a hard boiled egg with an ashen flavor in it. The taste is passable, though not exciting enough to care much for it. I've read these are often eaten wrapped in pickled ginger, which seems about right; have a strong acidic flavor surrounding a strong alkaline one. The parts that will definitely keep me from having more of these: the texture and the aftertaste. Though the packaging promises these are fairly solid in the core, the center of the yolk is quite gooey, which is quite unpleasant when mixed with an alkaline flavor. The aftertaste is the same as the initial flavor, but *it never goes away*. It's still there, and still strong. I'm going for ice cream now.