Shypoke Eggs | Homesick Texans

You could be forgiven for thinking that shypoke eggs were actually what they claimed. The wide white outer ring surrounding a bright orange raised nub certainly looks like an egg.

However, if you take a closer look, you’ll see that the lift comes from pickled jalapeños and not egg protein, but melted white and yellow cheese that provides the color. Shypoke eggs are not what they seem.

When I first encountered this San Antonio specialty, like many others, I believed it was a fried egg. However, when I learned it was a Tex-Mex appetizer instead, I was even more intrigued. The concept was incredibly clever.

The story of the shypoke egg goes back to a man named Loyal D. Hipp. In 1950 he opened a beer bar called the Hipps Bubble Room on San Antonio’s McCullough Street. It had a festive atmosphere as it was decorated with Christmas lights and a toy train circling the bar.

House specialties were cold beer, greasy burgers, and the aforementioned shypoke eggs. The latter was Hipp’s nod to nachos, then a new Tex-Mex dish.

According to the story, Ingacio Anaya created nachos in 1943 in the Victory Room in Piedras Negras, just across the border from the military town of Eagle Pass, Texas. A group of army women were visiting and asked him to bring a snack to go with their drinks.

Anaya improvised by making corn tortillas crispy, slicing them into quarters, and then layering them with cheese and jalapeño before melting them. He named his creation Nacho’s especiales, which translates to Nacho’s Specials, with Nacho being a nickname for Ignacio.

By the early 1950s, this frontier creation had made its way along the border and throughout South Texas and had become a frequent addition to menus. During that time, Loyal and his son Dick ate a plate of nachos at Nuevo Laredo. As they ate, Loyal decided to make some changes to the original format. The shypoke eggs were the result.

Much like the hen-and-egg story, it’s not clear if the optical illusion came first or simply his idea for a round two-cheese nacho. Regardless, his creation looked like an egg and he named it Shypoke because the word refers to an imaginary bird, which those eggs most certainly were.

In 1960, Dick opened his own shop, Little Hipp’s, just a few yards from his father’s apartment. Shypoke eggs were also on his menu. In 1974, Dick opened a shypoke egg stand during the fiesta at San Antonio’s Night in Old San Antonio (NIOSA) festival, and by that time the snack had gained tremendous traction. They are still served today and his stand often has the longest queues.

After Little Hipp’s closed in 2002, one of its chefs, a man named Tim Lang, opened a restaurant called Timbo’s. With the blessing of the Hipp family, he also included eggs on his menu. However, it has since closed, leaving only the Fiesta booth as the only commercial venue to offer them. I decided to try my hand at making them at home.

Now those offered at Fiesta and the eggs’ previous restaurant houses used American cheese. However, in my making, I chose Monterey Jack for the white ring and yellow medium cheddar for my “yolk.”

While you can make these with regular 6-inch corn tortillas, I picked up some small 3-inch corn tortillas meant for street tacos and found that they make the snack more portable. I fry my tortillas, but round tortilla chips could also be used.

Here’s a recipe that gives some pointers regarding the amounts of cheese used and timing. However, if you have experience making proper nachos, you’ll find that not only is this very similar, but it’s also a loose dish that can cater to your own needs as well. Serve with salsa on the side.