A simple bowl of tea eggs is a thing of great beauty; the porcelain-like egg white crazed with the pattern of black tea. I love these little snacks, with a bowl of rice, some Sichuan pickled cucumber and soy sauce or chilli oil. They are also a great building block in a sort of Asian antipasto, with master stock chicken or pigeon, the Sichuan pickled cucumber and fried tofu.
These are so easy – if you can boil water, you can make them!

6 free range eggs
3 tbs black tea
2 sticks cassia bark
3 whole star anise
½ tsp salt
5 tbs dark soy sauce

In a small pot, cover the eggs with water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes and then drain and plunge into iced water. Tap the eggs gently with the back of a spoon to cover all over with small cracks. Return the eggs to the pot and cover with fresh water. Add the tea, cassia bark, star anise, salt and soy. Simmer gently for 1 hour, remove from the heat and leave in the stock until cool.
To serve, take the eggs out of the stock, remove the shells and place in a simple bowl

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 9:58 am and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.