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 are virgin boy eggs a.k.a urine-soaked eggs

Tong Zi Dan (Virgin Boy Eggs) in a saucepan with fake urine.

Yep – this is an actual springtime Chinese delicacy. You can learn more about it in this 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.

How to make them at home

Two Chinese young boys pretending to pee into a jar to make fake Tong Zi Dan (Virgin Boy Eggs).

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.

Two young Chinese boys holding cups filled with apple juice to pretend that they are making Tong Zi Dan (Virgin Boy Eggs).

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

Two little Chinese boys holding up cups filled with apple juice to pretend they have urine and are making Tong Zi Dan (Virgin Boy Eggs).

When we collected enough bubbly piss…

An overhead shot of bubbly apple juice in a cup, pretending to be urine to make Tong Zi Dan (Virgin Boy Eggs).

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

An overhead shot of eggs in a dark yellow liquid in a sauce pan.

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.

Another overhead shot of two eggs submerged in dark yellow liquid in a saucepan.

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

A shot of dark yellow liquid boiling rapidly in a saucepan filled with some eggs.

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

Four hard boiled eggs draining in a colander.

Using the bottom of a ramekin, crack the shells…

A closeup of a hard boiled egg with a shell that is cracked in lots of places.

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

A metal sieve is taking a cracked hard boiled egg out of a dark yellow liquid.

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

A closeup of a gas stovetop with a blue and orange flame with a saucepan on top.

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.

Three hard boiled eggs covered in a dark yellow liquid in a stainless steel saucepan.

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

A hard boiled egg that has a crack in the shell.

A closeup of an overcooked hard boiled egg with yellowed whites.

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!

An unappetizing overcooked hard boiled egg that is split in half.

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

A smiling Chinese boy is pretending to take a bite of an overcooked Virgin Boy Egg.

A young Chinese boy is pretending to take a bite of an overcooked Virgin Boy Egg.

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.

A Caucasian woman with brown hair is taking a bite from a Tong Zi Dan (Virgin Boy Eggs).

The verdict: A big thumbs up! Yay!

A smiling Caucasian woman with brown hair is giving a thumbs up after taking a bite of a Virgin Boy Egg.

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.