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Recipe Tue Feb 10 2015
Chinese New Year Recipe: The Tea Egg
It's only nine days until Lunar New Year, which in English, roughly translates into Awesome Chinese Christmasgiving. This 15-day celebration typically entails watching fireworks, receiving lots of monetary gifts, and eating a belligerent amount of food. Steamed fish, dumplings, and long noodles are all delicious traditional recipes, but one underrated dish is the tea-boiled egg. I used to eat one for breakfast every day, and I find that they're a much tastier alternative to plain hard-boiled eggs. Because the following recipe involves a lengthy steeping component, it's best to start the process early.
Chinese Tea Egg Recipe
Ingredients
5 eggs
2/3 cups soy sauce
1 cup water
2 star anise pods
1 stick of cinnamon
2 tablespoons black tea (or 2 tea bags)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorn (optional)
2 tsp of orange zest (optional)
Directions
1. Place eggs in a medium pot with enough cold water to barely cover the eggs. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Remove the eggs and cool. When cool, use the back of a spoon to tap the eggshell until it is cracked, but not broken. The cracks allow the liquid to seep in and flavor the egg.
3. In the same pot, combine rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat. Simmer for 30 minutes. Then remove the pot from the heat, and add your cooked eggs from earlier.
4. Let the eggs steep for 4 hours, or overnight for maximum flavor.
