Flower Shiitake with Yolkless Eggs 花菇无黄蛋

Flower Shiitake with Yolkless Eggs (花菇无黄蛋) is a traditional Hunan dish of eggs whose yolks are taken out: each egg is pierced, emptied, and refilled with its beaten white mixed with stock, then steamed in the shell. It was one of the dishes Changsha (长沙) entered in the 2021 Taste of Hunan (味道湖南) awards, and it is among the ten Hunan classic dishes certified by the China Cuisine Association (中国烹饪协会) in 2018.

How it is made

Hunan Daily's New Hunan (新湖南) history column sets out the method. The cook pierces the egg at its narrow end and pours out the white and the yolk separately. A stock is simmered from pork bones and chicken and duck carcasses. The white is beaten, stock is added in about the amount the yolk took up, and the mixture goes back into the empty shell. The hole is sealed with thin paper and the eggs are steamed over high heat.

Huogongdian (火宫殿), a Changsha restaurant, serves what the Changsha Evening News (长沙晚报) calls an upgraded version of the traditional dish. The yolkless eggs are cut into chrysanthemum shapes. Flower shiitake and vegetable hearts are stir-fried, stock and pumpkin juice are added with a sprinkle of pepper, and the sauce is reduced and poured over the eggs.

Where it comes from

Li Qiang (李强), a Hunan cuisine master and executive chef at Huogongdian, was amazed by the dish as an apprentice at Yulou Dong (玉楼东), and tracing the unknown cook who invented it has long been one of his goals. From it he created Chrysanthemum Yolkless Egg (菊花无黄蛋): the cooled yolkless egg is cut two-thirds of the way down with a special knife, soaked in water so the 'petals' open, and steamed for 15 minutes in a porcelain cup of free-range chicken broth with a vegetable heart.

The China Cuisine Association gave Huogongdian's Flower Shiitake with Yolkless Eggs the title of national provincial and regional classic dish in 2018. In the 2021 Taste of Hunan awards, run jointly by Hunan provincial departments and the provincial broadcaster, it won a silver-medal dish award.