A Malaysian home cook got the shock of their life mid-recipe when cracking open what they thought was a perfectly ordinary egg only to find a partially-developed chick staring back at them.
The user, going by @_.4capp on Threads, posted photos of the grim discovery with an understandably distressed caption: “is this expired or what… please explain”.
Alongside the photos, they shared WhatsApp screenshots showing their friends’ equally baffled reactions. One friend’s response? “Bought eggs, got a chicken.”
Another friend, upon being told the embryo appeared to still be pulsating inside the shell, simply replied: “It’s still alive.”
The problem is it was like, still beating.”
So… what actually is this?
Several commenters came to the rescue with an explanation: what @_.4capp cracked open was almost certainly a fertilised egg that had been incubating long enough to develop, far enough along to show recognisable features.
In other words, the egg had started becoming a chick.
It was supposed to be a simple telur dadar
Speaking to WeirdKaya, the original poster, Acap, told us the whole thing started as an innocent attempt to fry an omelette.
He had taken out just two eggs from the tray. The first cracked perfectly fine. The second? Not so much.
“When I cracked the second egg, the insides didn’t fall out. Turns out I had to peel open the shell, ‘wait, what’s this reddish thing inside, shouldn’t it be yellow?'”
What he found inside was unmistakably a partially-developed chick and it was moving.
It clearly looked like a chick just starting to grow inside the egg. And then I could see what looked like a heart, beating.”
“Baru je beli” — the eggs were fresh
For those wondering whether this was a case of leaving old eggs in the back of the fridge for too long, it wasn’t. He told us the eggs were bought recently at Seri Ternak, together with his parents.
“As far as I know, I swear it was still fresh… I had only bought them a few weeks ago.”
Which makes the whole thing even more unsettling, this wasn’t a forgotten egg. It was a recently purchased one that just happened to be fertilised and had been quietly developing all along.
The smell sealed the deal
Did he consider cooking it anyway? Absolutely not.
There was NO way I was cooking that. The smell was absolutely rotten, I nearly threw up.”
He did try a third egg and it was fine
Here’s where it gets brave. Despite losing all motivation to cook, he eventually psyched himself up to crack a third egg from the same tray.
“Thankfully, the third egg had no chick inside.”
A small mercy. But here’s the kicker, the rest of the tray is still sitting at home, untouched.
The egg tray is still at home… like I said, I’ve completely lost the mood to cook eggs. No idea if there are more chicks in the same tray or not.”
Somewhere in a Malaysian kitchen right now, there may be more fertilised eggs sitting quietly in a tray. Waiting.
We wish him well and godspeed with the rest of that egg tray.
Netizens react
One commenter, who provided the most comprehensive answer:
“The egg was nearly mature (becoming a chick). Filipinos call it balut, and it’s haram for Muslims to eat.”
Balut is a fertilised duck or chicken egg with a partially-developed embryo inside, boiled and eaten as a street food delicacy most famously in the Philippines.
It’s a beloved (if polarising) snack there, but certainly not something you expect to stumble upon while trying to cook dinner in your Malaysian kitchen.
Another commenter cut straight to the point: “Fresh balut. You could become Filipino now.“
“Bro ive forgot about balut now you’re reminding me again
“Looking at this makes me want to throw up and my throat is tightening.”
Meanwhile, the original poster confessed that the smell was, in their words, “busuk gila” (absolutely rotten) but proudly noted they had since mastered breathing through their mouth to avoid catching a whiff.
One commenter from the practical corner of the internet offered a public service announcement:
“If possible, please don’t buy cheap eggs… quality really matters and it’s not even that costly.”
Solid advice. Maybe worth checking expiry dates too, while you’re at it.
Watch the clip here:
View on Threads
