I made these Son-in-law eggs recently when I had a glut of hard-boiled eggs after Easter.

Thai Son-in-Law Eggs

The first time I had son-in-law eggs was in Hawaii (yes, at that amazing graduate dorm). My Thai friend, Pepper introduced this to me and we set out to make it together. It’s a really delicious dish!

Crispy or Chunky?

My memories of how the son-in-law eggs was made back then are vague. So I looked up a bunch of recipes online to check if my memory of the dish is correct. Most of the recipes I found asked for the shallots to be fried till crisp.

But the way I remember Pepper and I made son-in-law eggs was to pan fry the shallots until the shallots were just softened, and then add the tamarind juices and other seasonings. Then we added the eggs to the sauce and let the eggs soak up some of that yummy flavor.

I guess that makes my take on son-in-law eggs a little non-authentic. But it’s still a very good dish because the sautéed shallots in the tamarind sauce gives it a chunkier, chutney-like quality. Whatever it is, I just like it this way so I’m going to stick to that. Try it out and let me know if you like it too.

Fried or Boiled?

Another one of my memories of making son-in-law eggs include how difficult it was to fry the boiled eggs. They have a nasty tendency to pop and splatter on you! In my opinion, the fried part of the egg is too chewy and doesn’t have a pleasant texture anyway.

I think I have made this dish only one other time since then, and that time I chose not to fry the boiled eggs. I thought it was perfectly fine. So if you have a distaste for frying, I would say try doing it without. It seems to taste just as good.

For this post, I decided I would give frying one more shot and, yeah… (Reminder to self: nix the frying and just cook the eggs in the yummy sauce.)

Thai Son-in-law Eggs Recipe

Ingredients:
6 hard-boiled eggs (deep fried if you prefer or left plain if you don’t care)
1/4 cup tamarind paste mixed with 1 cup warm water to soften and mushed to extract juice (it normally comes sold in a block or sometimes in a plastic tub but some stores also sell the extract in liquid form—if you get that kind, please add about 3 Tbsp to the water and more later if you need more tang)

Tamarind Pulp and Water

2 Tbsp palm sugar (brown sugar will work too but palm sugar gives a nice smokiness that you won’t get from brown sugar)

Palm Sugar (Gula Melaka)

1 tsp fish sauce
1-2 Thai bird-eye chili (use as many as your heat tolerance will allow), halved
4-5 shallots, sliced thin
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Method
1. If you plan to fry the eggs, heat a pot filled with oil (enough to cover 1/3 of the egg) and roll them around until they are blistered and golden brown. Be careful, they tend to pop and spit at you.

2. Remove eggs and set aside to drain on paper towel

3. Heat 2 Tablespoons oil in a sauce pan. Add shallots and sauté over medium heat until softened and just beginning to brown.

4. Strain the tamarind pulp and pour the tamarind juice into the saucepan with the shallots. Add fish sauce, palm sugar and bird-eye chilli.

Straining Tamarind Pulp

5. Bring sauce to a boil. Put eggs back into the saucepan and coat eggs with sauce. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly. Taste sauce and adjust seasoning as necessary. The flavors should be a balance of sweet, salty, tangy and spicy.

6. Remove eggs and cut them in half lengthwise. Arrange on plate. Spoon the sauce over the eggs and garnish with cilantro.

Thai Son-in-Law Eggs

Enjoy over rice!

Why do they call them “Son-in-Law” eggs anyway? I honestly have no clue and looking it up online didn’t provide any one, good answer. Ehh…whatever it is, it’s a delicious recipe and I hope you will try it out.

Cheers, Annie