Directions: |
Directions:1. Make a rather thin sugar syrup by mixing the sugar with the water in a large, flat frying pan over medium-low heat;
2. Separate the egg yolks from the whites (not needed) and strain them through a fine strainer to remove the yolk sac;
3. Place the egg yolks in a plastic bottle with a long tip;
4. Slowly drizzle the yolks into the sugar syrup;
5. When the become cooked--they turn a strong yellow-gold--remove them from the sugar syrup onto a willow strainer;
6. Untangle them from each other with two long toothpicks;
7. When finished cooking all of the egg yolks, strain the sugar syrup to spoon every so often over the cooked yolks to keep them moist. |
Personal
Notes: |
Personal
Notes: This recipe comes from my grandmother. It is not written anywhere because it contains few ingredients. My mother remembers that although my grandmother was a great cook, my mother did not know how to make these until a friend, the daughter of a Brazilian Ambassador who came to visit, taught her how to make these egg strings. The most important thing to learn is the process. This is a typical Brazilian "side", which can be used to top vanilla ice cream, to decorate a multiplicity of different cakes and pies, or served with Peru a Brasileira---Brazilian Style Turkey---which is traditionally eaten at Christmas (served with different types of farofa, both sweet with dried fruits and savory with bacon and the heart, liver and other parts of the turkey). A lot of time is required to prepared the "strings" of egg yolks, since only a few circles of yolks can be dropped in the pan at a time. Hence, the recipe is simple, but labor intensive, and rather expensive to purchase ready made. The recipe is simple to make however. In Brazil, they sell special funnels, with four tips into which the egg yolks are placed and dropped over the syrup. However, I understand from my mother that using these funnels can get quite messy since you don't have how to stop the flow of egg yolks when you stop dropping them over the syrup. You also lose a lot of yolks through drippings. My grandmother taught my mother to use a long, plastic bottle, with a long tip, and squeezing the required amount into the syrup, skimming them when they are ready, and the squeezing more, etc. until done. A plastic hair coloring bottle works wonders. After skimming, the cooked egg strings are placed on what in Brazil is known as a "peneira de Taquara", a big wicker-type plate which allows the excess syrup to drip from the cooked eggs. I suppose that any wide wicker strainer would work well.
The egg strings are very sweet, as are most recipes of Portuguese origin which make extensive use of sugar and egg yolks, but are generally used as a topping, or as an accompaniment and/or decorative item along with savory dishes like turkey (see above).
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This recipe for Fios de Ovos---Egg Yolk Threads is from