Tong Zi Dan (Virgin Boy Eggs)

I’m not gonna lie. This dish totally skeeved me out when my hubby first introduced me to it years ago. It’s a regional specialty that his family’s been making for generations.

What is it?

Virgin Boy Eggs – a.k.a. Urine-Soaked Eggs.

Yep – this is an actual springtime Chinese delicacy. You can learn more about it in this recent news report from Reuters.

According to Chinese tradition, these eggs have health benefits ranging from treating arthritis to preventing heat stroke. The trick, though, is that you have to use the urine of young virgin boys, preferably under the age of ten.

But get this: These eggs aren’t just medicinal – they’re also lip-smackingly delicious and 100 percent Paleo. Win-win!

Now that our boys are old enough to pee into a container, we decided to treat the Double-Os to a taste of their cultural heritage. They were more than eager to help out in the cooking process.

Wanna see?

First, we had to collect enough of the Double-O’s wee-wee to cover six pastured eggs in a medium saucepan. For a couple of days, we had them piddle outside into a Tupperware container that we kept sealed in the fridge.

We did our best to collect the urine first thing in the morning so that it’d be super-concentrated with nutrients.

When we collected enough bubbly piss…

…we poured it in a medium saucepan and gently dunked in a half dozen eggs.

Don’t worry about your cookware getting soiled: Urine is sterile, and the eggs are boiled for a long time, so you don’t need to worry about pathogens.

Here’s what you do: Bring the eggs to a roiling boil…

…before removing them from the steaming hot piss with a strainer.

Using the bottom of a ramekin, crack the shells…

…and carefully return the eggs to the pot of boiling urine.

Then, cover the pot with a lid and simmer on low for several hours.

When the eggs are finally finished cooking, remove the lid and take a long, deep whiff of the fragrant cooking liquid. The vapors are supposed to help with seasonal allergies.

We couldn’t wait to fish out our eggs and pop these suckers open for a taste.

After a long bath in hot pee, the egg whites had transformed into an amber-colored custard. The yolks were super-well-done and powdery, surrounded by a green-gray sulfury ring – just the way I like ‘em!

And the taste? They’re melt-in-your-mouth PEE-licious!

The boys eagerly gobbled up the Tong Zi Dan and declared them, “Number one!” (And they were – literally!)

Our non-Chinese pals were leery at first, and didn’t seem to savor the pungent aroma of the eggs as much as we did. But after some egging on (so to speak), they dove right in and slurped up some urine-soaked eggs.

The verdict: A big thumbs up! Yay!

These eggs are super easy to make, and I bet they’d be a wonderful replacement for deviled eggs at an Easter party. Plus, they’re naturally dyed without any icky artificial food colorings. You must try them!

Or not. The first sentence of this post is totally untrue. (As is the majority of the subsequent sentences.) If you finished reading this entire post and still believe we actually cooked eggs in our kids’ urine – and then ate them and served them to our guests – I have a bridge to sell you. My in-laws aren’t even from eastern China, and my husband wants me to make clear that his parents never made him pee in a saucepan. Ever.

Happy April Fools, suckers!

(Go ahead and punk your unsuspecting pals – share this post to spread the love!)