Preparation time: 90 minutes
Serves: 15
Tea egg is a typical Chinese savory street-food snack made with an egg, which is boiled, cracked slightly then boiled again in tea mixed with spices. It is also known as “marble egg” because the tea gets in the cracks of the shell during the boiling process and creates darkened lines and marble-like patterns.
INGREDIENTS
- 15 eggs
- 1 liter water
- 30 ml Shaoxing rice wine
- 4 whole star anise
- 4 bay leaves
- 2 shallots
- 3 cm thick ginger
- 1 Tbsp Szechuan peppercorns
- 1 tsp black peppercorns
- 1 Tbsp salt
- 80 ml dark soy sauce
- 40 ml light soy sauce
- 35g rock sugar
- 15g Oolong tea leaves
PREPARATION
Wash the peal of the eggs, then put the eggs in a pan with water. Add a bit of salt and boil the eggs for about 8 minutes. Pour the water out and put the eggs in a bowl with ice-cold water. Take one egg in the palm of your hand and carefully tap the convex side of the spoon on the peal until the egg shell cracks on multiple places. Repeat for all eggs. Put it aside. Cut the shallots into rough chunks and the ginger into thin slices.
Pour 1 liter of water in a pan and add: the rice wine, star anise, bay leaves, shallots, ginger, Szechuan peppercorns, black peppercorns and salt. Put the pan on the stove and cook the content for about 30 minutes. Then add the tea leaves and turn the heat to medium low. Let the eggs soak up the tea for about 30 minutes, then scoop out the tea leaves. Add the soy sauces, followed by the rock sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the cracked eggs and boil the eggs for 10 minutes.
Take the pan off the stove and leave the eggs in the tea soy sauce for at least twelve hours.
Peal the eggs right before serving.