3 reasons to add fresh local duck eggs from Olliffe to your shopping list
When you think about cooking eggs, your go-to product probably comes from a chicken—and with good reason. Our free-range pastured chicken eggs are both beautiful and delicious, and they sell just about as fast as we can stock them. But don’t let that be your only option—when you think about eggs, consider duck eggs as well. You may be surprised how much you like preparing this chef-favoured local product at home!
Here are three reasons you should try duck eggs if you haven’t already. Please contact us if you have any questions. We’d also love it if you showed us your duck egg culinary creations by tagging us on Instagram or Facebook.
Duck eggs are delicious
When it comes to taste, duck eggs are no compromise. These eggs are rich, creamy and absolutely delicious. They have a luxurious flavour that makes them ideal for quiches and omelettes, but they’re also excellent when prepared simply (poached, for example) and served on toast. Duck eggs are deeper in colour—typically more orange than yellow—so they look beautiful and can be quite impressive when serving guests. There’s something special about saying you’ve made a duck egg frittata or Korean-style marinated duck eggs to serve over warm rice with scallions. How divine!
Duck eggs offer excellent nutritional value
When great taste and nutrition go hand-in-hand, it’s a wonderful thing. Duck eggs offer more protein than chicken eggs (not just because they’re larger, but because they offer higher protein content bite for bite). Duck eggs also offer more antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids than chicken eggs, plus 50% more vitamin A. They provide choline, which supports healthy brain function, and like chicken eggs, they offer essential minerals like zinc, magnesium and selenium. Finally, they’re high in vitamins B and D. This video shows the difference in size and protein content, if you’re interested in comparing eggs from a variety of sources, and this article has more detailed nutritional information.
You already know how to cook duck eggs (trust us!)
Intimated? Don’t be. Duck eggs can be prepared any way chicken eggs can be—you just need to account for their larger size (for a soft-boiled duck egg, boil them for 6-7 minutes and for a hard-boiled duck egg, set your timer for 9 minutes). Scramble them, poach them, fry them, hard or soft boil them, put them in an omelette or quiche—you can even make deviled eggs or a great egg salad! If you’ve made it with a chicken egg, you can make it with a duck egg. They’re also great for baking cakes, loaves and muffins because of the higher yolk ratio and creamy, rich flavour (duck eggs are perfect for custard-based dishes for the same reasons). If you’ve cooked an egg before (and we’re sure you have), you’ve got this. Have fun experimenting in the kitchen and enjoy!