Also known as "Tea eggs" or "Tea leaf eggs".
Ingredients (serves 4 to 6):
200ml or 2 cups prime quality light soy sauce
4 cinnamon quills (桂皮)
4 five-star aniseed pods (八角)
10 cloves (丁香)
50g rock sugar
30g Chinese tea leaves
6 eggs, hard-boiled
10 quail eggs, hard-boiled
Method:
Prepare eggs:
1. Place eggs into a pot of water, making sure there is enough liquid to cover the eggs by at least a finger-nail's depth.
2. Bring to a boil for 7 minutes. Remove from heat and run cold water over the eggs to stop them cooking. Cool in a pan of cold water.
3. Crack the eggs, but DO NOT peel the shells. You want the sauce to seep through the cracks and make a marbled pattern.
4. Repeat process for quail's eggs, only boil in simmering water for 5 minutes.
Prepare soy stock:
1. Heat 4 cups water in a large pot. When water is boiling, add the tea leaves. Switch off fire and leave tea to steep for 10 minutes.
2. Add soy sauce and spices to tea liquid in pot and bring to a boil.
3. Add rock sugar and stir until it is all dissolved. Bring back to a boil and reduce the soy sauce stock until it is shiny and slightly syrupy.
4. Switch off the fire, add the cracked eggs and quail's eggs and leave to steep for half a day at least, preferably overnight.
5. To serve hot, reheat. Remove from shells from eggs and serve.
Tips:
For Chinese tea leaves, you can use longjing (dragon well tea) . If you prefer stronger tea flavours, subtitute it with tie guanyin (iron buddha) or pu erh.
Recipe source: Today newspaper
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