TeaChat

What is Tea eggs?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_egg



How to make Chinese tea eggs?
http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/leisure/88 ... _tea_eggs/

3:23pm Wednesday 2nd March 2011

Tea can impart some glorious flavours to basic foods. In her book Tea — A Global History (Reaktion Books £9.99) Helen Saberi includes several delicious recipes that call for tea as the main flavouring.

These include green tea ice cream, lemon and rose tea jelly and Chinese tea eggs with their attractive pattern of fine cracks normally reserved for ceramics.

YOU WILL NEED

* 12 free-range eggs
* 1 tspn salt 3 tbspn light or dark soy sauce
* Two star anise
* 1 tspn five-spice powder
* 3 tbspns black China tea leaves.

METHOD Hard boil the eggs for six to eight minutes.

Drain, and cool immediately by immersing in cold water. (This prevents the eggs developing discolouration around the yolk when cut open.)

Drain and then roll the eggs gently on a hard surface until the shell cracks finely all over, but do not peel.

Put the eggs back into the saucepan, cover with fresh water, add the salt, soy sauce, spices and tea leaves.

Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about one hour.

Allow the eggs to cool in the liquid.

Shell the eggs to reveal a beautiful marbled pattern and serve.

At the tea shop on the ground floor outside Kelana Jaya Giant the wife has a huge cauldron of tea eggs simmering away all day!

She seems to do a decent trade in them, if I go for a foot massage late in the evening, when passing the tea shop, there seem to be very few left.

I have never got round to buying any!

What do they taste like?

These were listed in teachef a while ago. I have been meaning to make some.

These look yummy, I'll have to try this. When I had chickens, we had SO many eggs. I would boil, partially crack up the shell and them smoke them for a couple of hours, which was also very good. I'd get this cool crackle look too.

I've done similar eggs in a strong lapsang souchong brew. Crackling was lovely and the smoky taste was a great complement to the eggs.

Herb_Master wrote:At the tea shop on the ground floor outside Kelana Jaya Giant the wife has a huge cauldron of tea eggs simmering away all day!

She seems to do a decent trade in them, if I go for a foot massage late in the evening, when passing the tea shop, there seem to be very few left.

I have never got round to buying any!

What do they taste like?

This is quite commonly sold in those chinese herb shop or some tea shops (purple cane).

Taste is quite nice. Sweet with the chinese herb taste. No tea taste at all.

I was once at purple cane, and after they brew longjing for me, they threw the remaining leaves into the pot where they are boiling the eggs. They usually boil it for the entire day in a rice cooker. Not sure how hygiene is that... hehe

i miss tea eggs!

Wow! Those look great, I know what I'm making tonight

This is roughly my method, though I'm still playing around with proportions:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/688197#5404846

Make sure to crack the shells enough.

I think a black tea is probably most usual, but I usually use whatever cheap roasted tieguanyin is around with good results.

wyardley wrote:This is roughly my method, though I'm still playing around with proportions:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/688197#5404846

Make sure to crack the shells enough.

I think a black tea is probably most usual, but I usually use whatever cheap roasted tieguanyin is around with good results.

Yeah, whatever you use, it should be pretty dark for the best effect.

And definitely crack the eggs thoroughly and leave them in the liquid long enough or it will not get through the inner membrane of the egg.

So do you actually simmer the eggs in water for an hour? That seems like a really long time for cooking eggs!

The eggs are cooked first, but yes, I simmer them again for a while longer after cooking, cooling, and cracking the shells. There's another kind of eggs, popular in Taiwan, called "Iron Eggs" - which are cooked for a much longer time, and develop a different texture.

wyardley wrote:There's another kind of eggs, popular in Taiwan, called "Iron Eggs" - which are cooked for a much longer time, and develop a different texture.

There is no tea involved in "iron eggs" making though..

cindyt wrote: There is no tea involved in "iron eggs" making though..

Right.

I'm going to try these next time I get some duck eggs:
http://wokwithnana.tumblr.com/post/2413 ... moked-eggs

Every time I make tea eggs they look right, but the taste isn't really there. I had a friend make them before and they were fantastic!

Oh well, I could always try steeping them for an extra 5 hours