Chinese tea eggs

School’s up and starting again and that means I’m going to have less time for blogging and baking ): I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve had the time to do some real baking but a cooking recipe is as good as any! This week I’d like to introduce you all to something new…Chinese tea eggs! 🙂

Chinese tea eggs are hard boiled eggs that have a crackle pattern on them because you partially crack them before you boil them in a “marinade”. These eggs are traditionally sold as snack items all along the streets of Asia because of their portability and inexpensiveness. I’ve never made these before myself but one of my uncles make these quite often and I asked him for a few tips and tricks for a beginner like me and they turned out pretty good for a first batch! I hope you all like this recipe and if you’ve never heard of these or tried them before I hope I inspired you to try something new because this is just so simple to make!

Ingredients:

8 eggs
4 cups water
2 black tea bags
2 tablespoons loose leaf Chinese tea (I used tie kwan yin but if you don’t have it use Black tea or Pu’reh leaves)
1 dried mandarin peel
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
2 tablespoon light soy sauce
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Off to the kitchen we go!

1.  Hard boil your eggs by boiling them in hot water for 10 minutes. Then transfer them into a bowl of cold water to cool.

2. While your eggs are cooling, prepare your marinade by placing all the ingredients into a clay pot. You can use a regular metal pot if you like but it works better with a clay pot. You may also want to try to soak your mandarin peel in water for a few minutes and scrape of some of the white pith before making your marinade broth to remove some of the bitterness.  

3. When your eggs are cool enough to handle, poke it with a needle a few times to help the marinade seep through the egg or lightly crack it on the counter top to create a crackle pattern on it.

  4. Place the crackled eggs in the pot and bring it up to a boil on medium-high heat covered. Then reduce the heat to low and let the eggs simmer in the liquid for 15 minutes uncovered. Remove the tea bags.  

5. Let the eggs soak in the liquid for another 2 – 3 hours to soak up more flavor or you may eat it right away if you like. The amount of time you let them soak in the marinade mixture depends on how strong you want your eggs to be of tea flavor. You can try them every so often to see if they are to your liking. However, if you aren’t eating it right away you will have to reheat the eggs in the tea mixture before serving.  

  6. Peel and munch!