368539 Wed Feb 07 08:23:06 -0800 2007 39 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 2268034 Interesting story in today's NY Times about unhatched eggs: www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/dining/07eggs.html?_r=1&ref=dining&oref=slogin I guess what goes around comes around. When I was a kid, chickens always had unhatched eggs inside. We called them "ayelach" (which just means little eggs in Yiddish). My grandmother put them in chicken soup and they were a special treat. Does anybody else remember eating them years ago? Wed Feb 07 08:23:06 -0800 2007 16828 Judith 1 2268126 I read the article last night online, and it stirred up memories for me, too. Our local deli in Montreal sold boiled unhatched eggs with cooked green pepper in a paprika-flavoured oil. We ate them cold, straight out of the plastic container we'd bought them in. Wed Feb 07 08:44:00 -0800 2007 2268034 48352 FlavoursGal 1 2268178 My aunt still has them at our Passover table because my uncle loves them. They also put them in the chicken soup. I have yet to try one. Wed Feb 07 08:51:05 -0800 2007 2268034 23415 pescatarian 2 2268220 Where does she buy them? I'd love to get my hands on some. Wed Feb 07 08:59:06 -0800 2007 2268178 48352 FlavoursGal 3 2268249 I don't know but I will call my Auntie Faigie and find out. Wed Feb 07 09:04:40 -0800 2007 2268220 23415 pescatarian 3 2269461 I haven't heard back from my aunt yet, but my Mom thinks she gets them from Goodfield's or Nortown. Wed Feb 07 13:02:21 -0800 2007 2268220 23415 pescatarian 1 2268259 This is one of those things i would love to try, i love egg yolks. Another one of those things lost and found in the rush to eat cellophane wrapped animal parts. Wed Feb 07 09:06:46 -0800 2007 2268034 12484 MVNYC 2 2268467 Fascinating article - I had never heard of them. And like MVNYC, I love egg yolks. I just don't "get" the idea of egg white omelets or egg white sandwiches - if there's no runny, yellow yolk, it's just not an egg to me. :-) Wed Feb 07 09:53:12 -0800 2007 2268259 10532 LindaWhit 1 2268510 What a great childhood memory. Back in the 50's, we used to gather for dinner at my grandmother's house on Friday nights. No matter what else she made, there was always a plate with a huge mound of chopped liver and, if we were very lucky, there would also be a few unborn chicken eggs in amongst the tangles of gribenes (rendered strips of chicken skin and onions). It was just a matter of getting to the table first. Wed Feb 07 10:01:50 -0800 2007 2268034 10787 Deenso 2 2268679 Gribenes. Talk about memories . . . talk about wonderful (talk about unhealthy :-) I actually rendered schmaltz a few years back in order to make authentic matzoh balls, and we had gribenes. I think they may be worth dying for (from?) Wed Feb 07 10:33:01 -0800 2007 2268510 16828 Judith 3 2269775 My grandmother put fried onions (they weren't called "caramelized" in those days) in her matzo balls instead of gribenes. We actually referred to fried onions AS gribenes. I carry on her matzo ball tradition proudly, and they have to be "sinkers" to be like Bubby's. Wed Feb 07 13:59:45 -0800 2007 2268679 48352 FlavoursGal 2 2269043 Gribenes. Just the word makes me nostalgic and starts my mouth to water. Then the caloric and fat issues come to mind and the joy is lost. What would I give for a return to the days of guilt-free gribenes idulgence or even just a little bit on a piece of matzah. Wed Feb 07 11:42:11 -0800 2007 2268510 48135 laylag 3 2269486 My grandfather ate them all the time, wasnt fat and lived to be 85. I eat fat and crispy fatty bits as well, just in moderation. Moderation is the key to enjoying things in life. If you have some gribenes for dinner, your lunch should be a salad. You can still enjoy these things. I like to think i am fairly healthy, i do eat fat. My main concern is staying away from processed foods when i can. Wed Feb 07 13:05:53 -0800 2007 2269043 12484 MVNYC 1 2268575 I remember them. My Cajun Daddy had grown up in the country and was determined that he wasn't going to raise his daughter as a city-dwelling priss-pot so he was always involving me is some sort of hands-on project much to Mama's dismay. Where he got the old hens, I'll never know but as we were cleaning them, there were the immature eggs inside which we cooked for lunch. Mama was having no part of that! I still remember how wonderful the color and rich taste were, simply cooked in butter, with plain rice. Cajuns have rice with everything. I've never seen eggs like those since. Wed Feb 07 10:14:35 -0800 2007 2268034 32444 MakingSense 1 2268585 Yes, a special treat in Ireland too, but only if you had access to a hen-a-tentiary! - Sean Wed Feb 07 10:16:35 -0800 2007 2268034 11294 Sean Dell 2 2270321 The Irish also have a related treat in buttered eggs: eggs that are rubbed with fresh butter immediately upon being laid. This seals the egg like an unhatched egg. Wed Feb 07 16:15:21 -0800 2007 2268585 13819 Karl S 3 2271601 You're quite right, Karl. Hot buttered eggs are heavenly. I have never seen anything like them on sale in the US. - Sean Thu Feb 08 05:01:06 -0800 2007 2270321 11294 Sean Dell 4 2271641 You'd have to work with a friendly local hatchery, I imagine, to arrange to get access to eggs as they are laid to do it yourself, as it were. Thu Feb 08 05:34:02 -0800 2007 2271601 13819 Karl S 1 2268650 I also had a memory rush when I read this morning's Times, Judith. I remember going to the Kosher butcher with my mom in the fifties, the kind who had sawdust on the floor, wore a hat, , and handed us kids sliced bologna (which I hated). The butcher cut the chicken up for my mom and offered her the little egg but she recoiled with distaste. So, because of Mom's feelings I never tasted the unborn eggs. Wed Feb 07 10:26:53 -0800 2007 2268034 57253 lucyis 1 2268692 These posts are taking me back to all kinds of memories. I haven't thought of the sawdust in years. The minute I read your post, I could smell the singed feathers. I suppose we could start a whole new conversation about chicken feet! Wed Feb 07 10:34:52 -0800 2007 2268034 16828 Judith 2 2269788 Oy, fisselach with pupiks and gorglach in fricasee! Did anyone's bubby used to make helzel? It's the skin from the neck of the chicken, stuffed with a flour/schmaltz mixture. Wed Feb 07 14:02:32 -0800 2007 2268692 48352 FlavoursGal 3 2270248 Helzel! Wow, talk about bringing back memories! I thought my grandma was the only person in the world who made helzel. I know I was the only one in the family who loved it. Wonder if anyone still makes it... Wed Feb 07 15:54:41 -0800 2007 2269788 14216 Marge 4 2270500 My sister and I used to fight over the helzel, with my grandmother stuck in the middle dividing it EXACTLY evenly. Nobody else in the family got to have any because it was a treat for the "aineklach." We also fought over leberlach (chicken livers) with fried onions and fried potato slices. Wed Feb 07 17:00:38 -0800 2007 2270248 48352 FlavoursGal 4 2271629 The complete American Jewish Cookbook has recipes for all kinds of stuff like this - helzel, gribenes, taiglach. It's out of print but there are always used ones around on ebay/Amazon. It's also an excellent basic cookbook - it's the main one I use. Thank you. Thu Feb 08 05:27:46 -0800 2007 2270248 12203 Bride of the Juggler 5 2271667 Thanks, Bride. I don't have that particular cookbook, but I do have quite a collection of Jewish cooking books, many of which contain recipes for these delicacies. What I wouldn't give for my grandmother's taiglach! Each hard little nugget contained a single raisin. I've been tempted over the years to try to replicate her recipe; my having diabetes seems to stop me, though... Thu Feb 08 05:51:21 -0800 2007 2271629 48352 FlavoursGal 4 2272402 I make helzel stuffing and i am a 30 year old guy. I am lucky enough that even though my mother was born in the US, she never lost sight of what tastes good and how to cook it. She passed this on to me. Stuffed neck is the best. When i was a kid the only parts of the chicken i would eat were the pupik, the neck, the safety pin part of the wing and the skin. I guess this set me up for loving all of the body parts available at Yakitori joints. The tail is actually my favourite. It really is a shame that there are so many stigmas upon eating things like neck, gizzard and skin nowadays. Thu Feb 08 09:36:08 -0800 2007 2270248 12484 MVNYC 5 2274272 I love helzel and want to make them but this is one of my grandmother's recipes that my mother doesn't recall The helzel were soooo good. I remember my grandmother saving neck skins for quite some time and then make the helzel with fricasee. Pupiks and helzel - peasant nirvana. As if the potted meatballs and fricasee'd wings weren't amazing enough. MVNYC, Since my mother can't help on this, would you be willing to share your helzel recipe? If so, can you let me know and post it on the Home Cooking Board. I'd be oh so grateful. It would be a mitzvah. Thu Feb 08 17:26:26 -0800 2007 2272402 48135 laylag 6 2274527 laylaq, I just found this recipe online. It seems likely that this is how MY bubby made it, although I'm not so sure about the potato; I think hers might have been made with just flour or matzo meal. Here's the recipe for "Falsa Kishke." http://www.cyber-kitchen.com/rfcj/CHOLENT/Helzel_Bubbes_Stuffed_Falsa_Kishka_-_meat.html Thu Feb 08 19:04:56 -0800 2007 2274272 48352 FlavoursGal 7 2277728 Thahks FlavoursGal. I'm fairly positive my grandma didn't use potato either - flour I think, matzo meal I don't think. Pretty sure there were some onions in there. Probably could use any derma stuffing recipe too. Have to try it after I start collecting chicken neck skins. Fri Feb 09 17:03:05 -0800 2007 2274527 48135 laylag 6 2276165 I dont have the exact recipe in front of me but it is similar to the one below, only with no potato, more onion and lots of black pepper. I sort of dont use a recipe similar to my mother and grandmother. I can look when i get home at what my mom wrote down for me and see what else there is different. If i have parsley on hand i throw some fresh flat leaf chopped parsley in there too, sage can work nicely too. I am not sure how Jewish that is, but I am not really Jewish either so... Fri Feb 09 10:28:22 -0800 2007 2274272 12484 MVNYC 1 2268743 Baked chicken was always a big hen, always bought alive from the poultry shop and beheaded in the back yard, and we always looked forward to the little eggs floating in the gravy. That was a mere fifty-some years ago...it's funny, but when I'd get "chicken and dressing" at a plate-lunch place in Nashville, the gravy usually had chopped-up hardboiled egg in it, and nobody seemed able to remember how that practice got started! Wed Feb 07 10:43:46 -0800 2007 2268034 11478 Will Owen 1 2268764 This topic comes up occasionally on the SF board, as one of our regulars Derek/"Chowfun" is a fan of the "unborn egg," having similar memories of his grandma putting them in her chicken soup. Locally, we've found them at some Asian markets. http://www.chowhound.com/topics/23987 (scroll down for a description of the market) Wed Feb 07 10:47:50 -0800 2007 2268034 10159 Ruth Lafler 1 2269027 When I was a kid my great-grandmother and grandmother would get them for the Jewish holidays and they were cooked in the soup. My mother likes them - they apparently were a special treat, almost a delicacy but I always thought the whole idea gross for whatever reason and never tried it. Wed Feb 07 11:38:14 -0800 2007 2268034 48135 laylag 1 2270205 FlavoursGal, my Aunt says she's gotten them at Nortown and at the butcher on the northwest corner of Bathurst and Steeles next to the CIBC. Wed Feb 07 15:43:12 -0800 2007 2268034 23415 pescatarian 2 2270469 Thank you! I know I'll be the only one eating them. My husband just told me that his grandmother made them, but he and his brother never touched them. And I wouldn't dream of tricking my teenaged daughter; not after last week's beef [cheeks] stew. Wed Feb 07 16:52:31 -0800 2007 2270205 48352 FlavoursGal 1 2270961 That's a good call re your daughter - enjoy them though! Re the stuffed neck, I'm sure my maternal bubby made them. I never met her, but I think my aunt made it once because her mother made it - apparently she never wasted much of any animal - apparently one of her best dishes was cow's lung! Imagine if she new her granddaughter (me) was a vegetarian for 15 years and her youngest daughter is a vegan! Wed Feb 07 19:42:22 -0800 2007 2268034 23415 pescatarian 1 2273553 Boy did I love these. My mother would get them with the kosher chickens, cook them, and I would down them one after one with lots of kosher salt.....you can find them at farmer's markets sometimes. We called them unborn eggs. Thu Feb 08 13:53:50 -0800 2007 2268034 12618 erica 1 2275285 I absolutely remember eating those little eggs. My Bubbie would cook them in her chicken soup on Friday. We called them "chickie eggs." I suppose little of the chicken went unused, because I also remember enjoying chicken feet in some kind of a reddish color sweet/sour gravy. Fri Feb 09 06:23:13 -0800 2007 2268034 49600 CindyJ 2 2275488 That reddish colour sweet/sour gravy would have been chicken fricasee. My bubby's had meatballs, pupiks, gorgelach and, of course, fisselach, in a tomato-juice-based sauce. She used sour salt (citric acid) for the sour "tam." Fri Feb 09 07:38:53 -0800 2007 2275285 48352 FlavoursGal 1 5168307 Judith, I've been trying to find the names of those eggs for years. The closest I came was "eggalah" which I guess was fairly close. THANKS for clarifying!!! Mon Nov 09 15:18:06 -0800 2009 2268034 1123132 rickdox