Steamed Duck Egg Yolk – Kai Krob

We recently posted this picture of brightly colored steamed duck egg yolks or Kai Krob (ไข่ครอบ) on our Facebook page and asked people to guess what they were, how they are cooked and why are they such a vibrant orange color. Several guesses were close but nobody mangaged to answer all three questions so it’s time to reveal all…

Steamed Duck Egg Yolk

Steamed duck yolk, Kai Krob, is a local product of Songkla and originates from the deep South of Thailand. Many Thai people from the other regions of the country may be unaware of this dish as it is a relatively unknown local speciality. The dish is very simple, two fresh duck egg yolks are selected and separated from the whites. The yolks are a vivid orange color as the ducks have been fed a special diet of shrimp heads and shells along with other small fish. These two yolks are placed inside a single half duck egg shell that has been neatly cut in two and cooked in a Chinese style steamer.

This dish arose from the historical use of egg white by Thai fisherman to paint their nets to increase toughness and durability. This led to a surplus of unwanted egg yolks for which the enterprising womenfolk of the South put to good use by steaming them in this distinctive way and creating the dish Kai Krob.

Follow the link to see the salapao vendor who made this dish in the above photo. There’ll be post about this vendor at a later date.

We had a few good guesses of steamed egg yolk on our Facebook page (and a few wild ones!) though surprisingly nobody guessed it was a duck egg though there a few suggestions of turtle egg. A Perfect Pad Thai Kit will soon be winging it’s way to a lucky entrant. If you’d like to see the original comments then click here.

We would be very interested to hear your comments about ‘Kai Krob’ or if there are any speciality dishes you would like us to investigate then please let us know and we’ll try to track them down and write a post about it.

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