Thai cooking - Egg shells as an ingredient?!
Answers: I've got an excellent book on authentic thai cooking that I just can't wait to use. As with many cookbooks, I read this one cover to cover to find out what was in it and get a feel for the themes of thai cooking - what veggies, seasonings or meats they use predominately. A couple of the recipies involve crushing eggshells and mixing them with other ingredients and sort of steeping them in hot water and then straining the juice off to use in the dish. My question is: What job do the eggshells perform in the dish - do they add a flavor or do they do something for consistency (and if so, how does it work scientifically?) . Thanks !
Egg shells mostly contain calcium carbonate CaCO3, i.e., chalk, TUMS, etc... Like an antacid, the egg shells help to partly neutralizes the acidity of certain ingredients, like sugar. Denaturing certain ingredients will aid other parts of the recipe. (i.e., I want something sweet, but how can I keep the recipe non-acidic so that my egg yolks don't turn into rubber? ...that sorta thing)
We can also find egg shells in recipes for consomme and depression-era coffee (sometimes used along with egg whites as a protein coagulant) to remove impurities; clarify, also due to the porous nature of the membrane.
A few of my favorite Thai desserts call for egg shells in its recipe, i.e., "Foi thong".
hmm, never heard of this technique, but I imagine it wouldn't be a necessary or un-replaceable ingredient!
it might serve the same pourpus as shells in a seafood bisque, to thicken the product. i would recoment POWDERING the shell, if you even try this.
They add flavor and consistency. The eggshells have albumin (a protein) on its inner lining which will make a subtle change in the consistency.
This is a perfect question for Alton Brown!
The eggshells provide calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Calcium carbonate is widely used medicinally as an inexpensive dietary calcium supplement, antacid, and/or phosphate binder.