Blogging Marathon – Tokneneng

 

Today is the final day of this week’s Blogging Marathon on Fritters! My recipe for today is perfect for for days when one is too lazy to make an elaborate snack. It is the recipe for a street food from Philippines called Tokneneng which is frying hard boiled chicken eggs in a fiery orange batter. The same recipe is also used with quail eggs and is called kwek kwek.

WHAT YOU NEED

6 Chicken eggs

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 cup corn starch

2 tsp annatto powder (See Notes)

Coarse table salt

Pinch of ground black pepper

1/2 cup water

extra corn starch for dusting the peeled eggs

Oil for deep frying

WHAT TO DO

Boil the eggs for around ten minutes. Cool the eggs and peel the shells Combine all the dry ingredients together

Heat the oil

Add water to the dry ingredients and mix till the texture of the batter becomes really smooth and free from any lumps.

By now the oil should be hot enough for frying.

Roll each egg in corn starch and coat them with the batter

Lower the egg one by one into the oil with a spoon. You can fry as many eggs at a time depending on the size of your pan. You only need to ensure that the eggs don’t come in contact with each other in the oil

Once the eggs floats on top of the hot oil, let them cook for  5-10 seconds before removing them.

This is another dish which is recommended to be served immediately.

Notes 1. Annatto powder is a food colouring derived from the achiote tree. You can simply use orange food colouring like I did. The uniqueness of this dish is in the bright orange batter. So use the food colouring a little generously to get the perfect colour.

2. If you are a pure vegetarian, then you an try this recipe by replacing eggs with paneer. The additional step would be to sprinkle some salt on the paneer and leave it for 15 minutes before dunking it in the batter.

3. After peeling the eggs, hold them under running water for 30 seconds. This will remove any minuscule shell pieces from the egg.

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