soy-marinated eggs, cut open at midnight
Ingredients · tap to check
- 6 to 7 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 Tbsp salt, for the boiling water
- 1 Tbsp vinegar, for the boiling water
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1 to 1 1/2 cups water, or kombu dashi for more depth
- 1/3 cup brown sugar or oligodang syrup
- 1 Tbsp garlic, minced
- 1/2 onion, finely diced
- 1 scallion, white part, finely chopped
- 1 to 2 green and red chilies, sliced into rings
- 1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds
- hot steamed short-grain rice, to serve
The Way
- Bring a pot of water to a boil with the salt and vinegar - both help the shells release cleanly later. Lower the eggs in straight from room temperature, not from the fridge, or they crack.
- Boil at a steady roll for 6 to 7 minutes. Six is a looser, brighter yolk; seven is set at the edge with a soft center. Set a timer and trust it.
- Lift the eggs straight into ice water and leave them 8 to 10 minutes. This is the step people skip and it is the only reason the yolk stays jammy - it kills the carry-over cooking dead. Cut it short and the center goes chalky by morning.
- Peel under a thin stream of cold water, starting at the fat end where the air pocket sits.
- Mix the marinade cold - do not cook it. Stir the soy sauce, water, sugar, garlic, onion, scallion, chilies and sesame seeds together until the sugar dissolves.
- Lower the peeled eggs in so they are fully submerged. If they bob, lay a folded paper towel on the surface so the exposed tops still stain evenly.
- Refrigerate at least 5 hours, but overnight to 12 hours is the standard. Short steeps leave pale unstained patches on the white; overnight gives you that deep even mahogany.
- To serve, set an egg or two on a bowl of hot rice, spoon over a little of the marinade, scatter sesame and scallion, and cut through with a knife so the yolk runs down into the rice.
midnight tip. do not let them sit more than about three days. the marinade keeps pulling salt inward, and past day three the white turns rubbery and aggressively salty while the yolk sets up firm. two days in is the sweet spot. if you want to keep them longer, lift the eggs out of the liquid on day two and store them dry in a covered container.
Questions
why are they called mayak eggs?
mayak translates roughly as narcotic - a Korean nickname for anything so moreish you cannot stop. it is the same slang used for mayak gimbap. no ingredient in it is unusual; the name is entirely about how fast a bowl of rice disappears.
can I reuse the marinade?
once, if you boil it first and let it cool, and only for another batch of eggs. it picks up a lot of water from the whites each round, so by the second reuse it is weak and cloudy. it is also good drizzled over rice or noodles on its own.
my eggs came out chalky, what happened?
either the boil ran long or the ice bath was too short. a residual-heat egg keeps cooking for several minutes after it leaves the pot. six or seven minutes in the water and a full eight to ten in the ice, no shortcuts.
how spicy is this?
mild as written. the chilies sit whole in rings and only lend a background warmth over the overnight steep. if you want real heat, slice a cheongyang chili thinly so more surface is exposed, or add a spoon of gochugaru to the marinade.
(this one was MAYAK) — it finds your DMs.
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