On a much lighter note from my last post (over a month ago... I'm not really doing too well with this whole blogging thing), I recently read in Bon Appetit that duck eggs are, well, I guess are the new chicken eggs. (Yes, I do realize that the article I link to is from January and I say it is "recent." I don't have too much time to read magazines. I am too busy working, caring for my children, and searching for obscure, out-of-print Maisy Mouse books to feed my toddler's Maisy obsession.) So, I picked up some ducks eggs at a local farm. Ok, in an effort of full disclosure, I mentioned said article to my mother, who then went to a local farm and bought me 6 duck eggs. I love my mom.
Anyway, not heeding the advice of Bon Appetit (why should I? They only have light years more experience with things like this than I do, not to mention a test kitchen and people who are paid to figure out things like this), I decided to scramble a duck vs. chicken egg to see if I noticed a difference. Note that I used farm-fresh duck and chicken eggs, so I wasn't comparing store bought eggs of either variety. The first thing I noticed that the shell of the duck egg was significantly harder to crack. It wasn't a problem, just interesting. I cracked each egg into a small dish and whisked them up with a fork. It was obvious immediately why the duck egg is said to be richer - the yolk was much more viscous - to incorporate it into the white took more effort. The actual scrambled eggs weren't too different in my opinion. However, in the interim period between the cracking, whisking and cooking both kids woke up, so I couldn't take the quite the care I had been hoping. (Also, my two-year old loves scrambled eggs, so I couldn't make eggs and not share - particularly when "sharing" is currently a big point of contention in our house - and I make her eggs slightly less "wet" than I make mine, so perhaps had they been done perfectly I would have tasted a bigger difference.)
I then hard-cooked two of the duck eggs. I accidentally gave one to my brother, who probably wouldn't have noticed if it was a dinosaur egg, so that one was kind of a waste. The other I sliced up and ate alongside a hard-cooked chicken egg. I thought (and my mother, with whom I shared the eggs, agreed) that the chicken egg was actually tastier than the duck egg. It had more "egg" flavor.
A few days later I told my colleague about this. She mentioned that she heard that duck eggs make much richer, tastier baked goods. So, with my remaining 2 eggs, I made corn bread. I chose this because its something I make fairly frequently so, since I didn't have the time (nor care) to make two batches, I would be able to make an extremely unscientific judgement about whether this batch tasted different from my last one. I found that I didn't notice a difference in taste, but the duck-egg bread had a richer texture - not so crumbly - which was nice.
So all-in-all, with the price difference (the duck eggs were more expensive than our usual farm-fresh chicken eggs) as well as what I consider a tastier flavor, I will continue eating chicken eggs. However, if I make a cake for a special occasion or something, I would consider splurging for some duck eggs. Now another reason I did this is because I'd really like to raise my own egg-laying poultry and I like ducks more than I like chickens (chickens kind of scare me, honestly, and have you ever SEEN a baby duck? They are absolutely adorable), so I thought if they laid a better egg maybe I would get ducks instead. This little taste-test did not help that decision-making process at all. Luckily, I can barely care for myself, my two kids and my house at this moment, so it's going to be awhile before any live fowl, duck or chicken, make their way into my yard.
