A delicious snack that can double as a spooky contribution to your Halloween buffet (with the right branding). Salty with a hint of cinnamon and star anise, they especially hit the spot in the colder months.
What do you mean, T-Egg? Looks O-shaped to me.
A Patron
Happy Halloween! I thought I’d mix up the decorations a little this week. Is this recipe spooky in any way? Really depends on your branding. Chinese Tea Eggs – no. But spider eggs? Alien eggs? Put the right label on these bad boys, and they’ll fit right in with your next Halloween buffet. Outside of that, I like to eat them as a snack straight from the fridge, and they’ve also worked quite well as a stand-in for regular old ramen eggs.
Besides the taste and ease of preparation, the best thing about this recipe is that you already have all the ingredients at home if your kitchen is well-stocked. Any black tea will do, you don’t need a specific brand or type. The bagged variety is most convenient, but loose leaves also work.
There’s not much that can go wrong with this recipe as long as you remember to make it a day ahead of time due to the 24-hour marinating period. On that note, if you don’t have a zip-lock bag, make enough additional marinade to cover your eggs in whatever container you have (e.g. a plastic food storage container).
The eggs can be anywhere from soft- to hardboiled depending on your preference. Just be gentle when cracking them – you don’t want any pieces of the shell to fall off completely. If you’re lazy, you can of course peel them right after cooking and marinade them without shell, but where’s the fun in that?
Chinese Tea Eggs
Ingredients
- 6 eggs
Marinade ingredients
- 2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1 bay leaf
- 0.5 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
- 1 star anise
- 1 small cinnamon stick
- 1 bag black tea
- 300 ml water or more to top up
Instructions
- It is advised to make the eggs and marinade simultaneously to save time:
Boil the eggs
- Put a pot of water on the stove over high heat. It should be enough to cover your eggs completely.
- Once boiling, turn down the heat to medium. If it bubbles too violently, it might crack the eggs.
- Carefully lower the eggs into the boiling water individually using a slotted spoon or ladle.
- Let them simmer for a few minutes depending on your preference: at least five minutes (for soft-boiled), and no longer than ten (for hard-boiled).
- Prepare a bath of cold tap water and, if you have them handy, ice cubes.
- After removing the eggs from the pot, place them in the ice water immediately so they cool down rapidly and completely.
Make the marinade
- In the meantime, mix marinade ingredients together in another small pot.
- Bring the marinade to a boil and then simmer for 10 minutes over medium-low heat.
- Remove the pot from the stove and let cool completely.
Marinade the eggs
- With the eggs fully cooled down, gently crack their shell with the back of a tablespoon. Be careful not to break whole chunks out of the shell, as you only want cracks to form.
- Put the eggs into a small zip-lock bag and pour in the now cool marinade.
- Press out the air and close the bag in such a way that all eggs are fully submerged in the marinade.
- Place the bag in the fridge and marinade for 24 hours.
Snack time!
- Whenever you want to eat an egg, take it out of the bag and peel it.
- Always close the bag again and leave the remaining eggs in the marinade, which both preserves them and deepens the flavor over time.
- Kept inside the fridge like this, the eggs will be good to eat for about five days.
