http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2011/01/11/chinese-new-year-kids-project-chinese-tea-eggs-from-steamy-kitchen/My friend Jaden runs the gorgeous blog Steamy Kitchen and wrote an awesome cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook: 101 Asian Recipes Simple Enough for Tonight’s Dinner. She is a great person, and her book is my go-to resource for Chinese recipes I can replicate in my own kitchen. I was browsing her website recently (she is an awesome photographer and her site is stunning!) and came across these Chinese Tea Eggs. They are absolutely gorgeous, and according to Jaden, in Northern China they symbolize golden nuggets (a.k.a prosperity) for the new year. I decided to make them with my daughter after school this week. She had so much fun cracking the shells and admiring their marbled crevices after they’d steeped overnight. As you can see, we had a blast analyzing the shells and oohing and aaahing at their pretty colors. Then we ate them for breakfast and hoped for a prosperous new year to come.
Chinese Marbled Tea Eggs
Adapted from Jaden of Steamy Kitchen
6 eggs
3/4 cup soy sauce
2 star anise
2 tablespoons black tea (or 2 tea bags)
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorn (optional) or freshly cracked black pepper
2 strips dried tangerine or mandarin orange peel (optional)
1. Gently place the eggs in a medium saucepan and fill it with water high enough to cover the eggs by 1 inch.
2. Bring the water to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low and let the water simmer for 3 minutes. Retrieve the eggs using a strainer or spyder and leave the water in the pot.
3. Hold one of the eggs in your hand and use the back of a teaspoon to rap the shell, cracking it all over. Keep the shell in tact, but make significant divets.
4. Add the soy sauce, star anise, tea, cinnamon, sugar, pepper and orange peel to the water and place the eggs in back in the pot. Bring the mixture to a boil for one minute, then reduce the heat and simmer the eggs for 40 minutes. Then turn the heat off completely, place the lid on the pot and let the eggs steep for a few hours to overnight.