This is something that a friend told me many years ago, and was meant to be a conversation starter. At the time, we had no idea that it was actually possible to buy an ostrich egg or try the experiment!
About 15 years ago I bought my first ever ostrich egg, at the local farmers’ market. I was so fascinated and pleased to finally have one in my possession. In fact it seems easier to get hold of ostrich meat than ostrich eggs, and I’d highly recommend the meat too! Of course we had to keep the egg intact, so enlisted the help of my father and his hand-drill to put holes into the egg and blow it. Jess painted the egg as an activity with her grand-dad and we have had it on display in the house ever since. You can see her first painted ostrich egg in the picture.
I learnt some useful information from this first ostrich egg experience. Firstly, it would be a waste to boil it I think, as then you would have to destroy the shell. Also the shell is itself incredibly tough and could be difficult to crack away from your boiled egg. Having said that, I did read an interesting blog piece recently from someone who had cooked various scotch eggs for a party, including a scotch ostrich egg! I am sort of tempted to give it a go sometime… The blog writer recommended boiling the egg for about 2 hours rather than the 4 that my friend had suggested all those years ago! Secondly, an ostrich egg is the equivalent of about 20 chicken’s eggs. So if you are going to blow one of these huge eggs, do have a plan as to what you are going to do with all that egg! I think that the egg in the picture above we ate as scrambled egg and smoked salmon as a first course with friends we were entertaining, and I also made a cake.
A few weeks ago my daughter Jess, who is a chef, so followed in my footsteps with her love of food and also a love of crafts and painting, spotted an ostrich egg in Waitrose and decided to buy it! She wanted to paint another egg for our collection. In case you are wondering, the egg cost £20 and is actually marginally bigger than the first one we bought. The first task of course was to drill holes in the egg. Sadly my father died last year, but the hand drill is still in the house, so Jess managed to do the drilling herself and I helped her to blow the egg. It was a very satisfying experience as you can see from the pictures!
We are all very fond of scrambled egg, so we had a family lunch of scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. By the way, in case you are wondering, ostrich egg does not taste any different from chicken’s eggs or indeed duck or quails’ eggs. I think the novelty is just in having a different sized egg. I put a batch of the beaten egg into the freezer and kept it for making a birthday cake for for Paul’s mother to celebrate her 90th year! Jess of course has painted the new egg and it has pride of place on top of the cookery books bookcase, along with its partner. You can see the painted egg and the cake in the pictures below.
Have you ever cooked an ostrich egg or blown one to use the shell for decorative purposes? It would be lovely to see other images of painted ostrich eggs!