I love tea eggs! If you do use this method, be sure to remove all of the eggs once you're happy with the flavour, as they'll continue to soak up the marinade and become stronger tasting if left much longer. Taiwan's food and drink philosophy is eat often and eat well. Wow, these are amazing!! It is deemed a popular street food that usually costs about 2 yuan. Rock sugar is crystallized sugar cane juice, often sold in large, clear, light yellow pieces. Egg Doneness - this recipe uses a Japanese-style cooking method that yields a medium-set yolk typical of the eggs served along with ramen. It doesn't even need to be peeled - just sliced into relatively thin sections. Preservatives in Century Eggs . Note that if you've made the softer boiled eggs described in the steps above that you'll need to take extra care not to hit or squeeze the eggs too hard, as they'll break more easily than a truly hard-boiled egg. You can walk into any Seven-Eleven and find a big pot full of spiced, aromatic tea, loaded with these marbled and delicious eggs. If you're already shopping for the spices, pick some up - it's inexpensive, and easy to find at Asian grocery stores. A trip to an Asian grocery store (or a well-stocked conventional grocery store) should yield all of these ingredients quite easily, and at very reasonable prices. Photo about The close up of Taiwan Tea Eggs on mini white plate. © 2010 Taiwan Duck. If you're relatively new to Chinese cooking, some of these ingredients might be less familiar to you. Given that the spices are fairly strong and bold, I personally think that a bolder tea (i.e. I have seen these on the web, and they have always intrigued me. I love hardboiled eggs, but I’ve never tried anything like this. The other two are green (wasabi) and red (hot chili). In the bottle, this colour difference is subtle, but a small amount poured out in a spoon (for example) is noticeably lighter than dark soy sauce. I also love that you got some learnin’ done via The Woks of Life. Now I know how to make a better tea egg. Add tea leaves to the hot liquid, set aside, and allow to cool. Sean, your detailed descriptions of everything from cooking the eggs, to the varieties of tea and individual spices and soy sauces is publisher-worthy — and like Amanda said before, your photography is gorgeous. I couldn't think of any better way to start than with these awesome, snackable Taiwanese tea eggs. Not only is it a wonderfully simple and amazingly delicious recipe, it's also the first of a series of egg-based recipes that I'm going to be developing this year. The idea is to crack the shell of the cooked egg evenly so that the tea and spice marinade can get through to the white beneath. You'll probably find tea egg recipes out there that simply substitute five-spice powder for the individual ingredients, but this short cut makes it tricky to get the right balance of flavours, and it will make for a messy broth (whole spices infuse flavour without leaving crushed bits floating on the surface). Black cardamom is intense, camphoric, and smoky. Traditional tea eggs are usually heating on a stove and has been boiled for quite a long time, possibly server hours. It's a perfect snack or potluck dish to make ahead of time. They have a fab thing going on over on that site. If you're short on time, you can peel the eggs and then add them to the marinade, then take them out after about 4 hours. — Though to get those lush creamy insides you mentioned, I think I’d remove them after 8-9 minutes. Let me know in the comments below or by email. They'll be uniformly dark brown instead of marbled, but they'll soak up the flavour a lot faster. Light soy sauce is almost never labeled as such, but you can generally assume that any Chinese all-purpose soy sauce is or can be used as light soy sauce. They look so intimidating, but I see now, it’s not nearly as complex as I had made it out to be. Thank you for such a comprehensive and informative tutorial. I wanted to take a moment to explain how to crack the cooked eggs, because while it's pretty easy to do, it's also quite important to get right. You are so happy. They're a delicious, inexpensive, and easy snack. Hard-boiled eggs are the standard, and these are often hard-boiled to the point where the yolk is very dry and a bit greenish. Joanne has recorded a video showing you how to make this popular Taiwan’s 7-11 snack at home, wherever you may live in the world! Please join us on Facebook and you will hear about our new recipes and videos first! I love Chinese food in general, but Taiwanese food has become my 'adopted' home cuisine. * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. The spice blend and tea choice varies quite a bit, but the general flavour profile is built around the classic Chinese five-spice mixture (anise, cassia, cloves, Sichuan peppercorn, and star anise). Some people quite like green or jasmine teas with these eggs, though I personally find that they don't stand out against the powerful spices quite as much. I was looking to emulate the method that the Japanese use to boil eggs for ramen. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. I will definitely show this to my hubby, as he is our tea egg maker in the house Eggs are braised with spices and Chinese teas thus have a unique and strong tea flavor. That being said, cassia has a somewhat bolder, more medicinal flavour, with a slight anise-like edge. Do you like the 'tea eggs' they sell in 7-11 convenience stores in Taiwan? A tea egg is, essentially, a hard-boiled egg that is lightly cracked all over and then cooked a second time in a broth made of tea, soy sauce, five-spice powder or any of a variety of other seasonings. Black Cardamom - NOT the same as green cardamom, and definitely not interchangeable with it. Pro-tip (and weird tip): you can put it in a very durable thick fabric bag and smash it with a hammer if you need to break down pieces for recipes or measurements. It’s right, when they cook, this is like “7 Eleven” ! It’s so informative, but also so personable! This recipe take a bit of time, but very little in the way of effort. So much knowledge! Fortunately, this recipe is a really easy one to get started with, as the spices are left whole and no complicated cooking techniques are used. This lets the flavour soak into the egg while leaving a particularly beautiful spider-web pattern of dark lines. Star Anise - The Mandarin Chinese name bajiao (八角) literally means 'eight angles/corners,' a reference to the distinctive star-like appearance of this spice. They are also sold in stores, restaurants, and from street vendors. Cassia and true cinnamon are closely related, and in North America cassia is frequently labeled simply as 'cinnamon,' while true cinnamon is given some other descriptor like Ceylon or Sri Lankan cinnamon. Chinese tea eggs galore—goose eggs, duck eggs, chicken eggs… If there is one food item that one can find just about anywhere in Taiwan, it would be the Chinese tea eggs. Yes, some of those ingredients are already in the recipe but that’s how to make this spice bag! Chinese Soy sauce egg (卤鸡蛋) is one of the most popular street foods with the famous Chinese tea eggs. No pantry pages have been written yet for any of the ingredients in this recipe. A little goes a very long way. Bay Leaves - Yep, regular old dried bay leaves. 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