Eggs calibre

Chinese cuisine probably includes as many variations of fuyung eggs as French cuisine has omelettes. Aside from this dish, known to anyone who has been to their local Cantonese take-away, there are many ways of handling this basic ingredient which are unfamiliar to Europeans.

Salted eggs, mixed with congee (rice gruel), are a common breakfast dish. Preserved duck eggs are eaten by themselves or with cubes of beancurd. Egg "drops" are wound into soups to add contrast to the texture. For banquets, quail eggs are stuffed with seafood and mushrooms. Marbled tea eggs are hardboiled in tea, cinnamon and star anise. There's also a recipe, using a wok, very similar to the almost forgotten deep-fried egg.

Chinese chefs have a fascination for egg white because its texture can vary between the hardness of a 1,000-year-old egg and the barely set texture of egg drops - and any stage in between.

They also like its blandness because it can either absorb or balance out other flavours.

Because their techniques of cooking are so often stir-fry or steam-based, they don't have large margins between perfectly cooked and over-cooked dishes. With eggs, the two extremes are especially stark. When the albumen in the scrambled egg white is cooked too long, it turns rubbery, like an over-poached egg. Done right, it has both bite and lightness.

Controlling the heat of the pan, the way the food is moving in the wok and the cooking time are always interrelated and critical.