Earl Grey Tea Egg 格雷伯爵茶茶叶蛋

When I was a little girl, I was always attracted to the refreshing tea aroma from the constantly simmering tea eggs selling at the Chinese herbal shop. However, I seldom bought it as I find it too troublesome to peel the egg shell, especially I didn't want to get those dark tea gravy all over my hands, leaving my hands sticky from the sauce. One day, a childhood friend of mine invited me for tea eggs, and then she taught me a trick: leave the tea egg inside the plastic bag, roll the egg around with both of your palms, now the shell will crumble easily and you can use the plastic bag to rub the shell away pretty effortlessly.

Tea egg is an extremely easy dish. If you wish to have it for breakfast, you can boil some eggs and whip up the sauce the night before you sleep, and leave them in a thermal pot. Let the pot do the job for you while you are having your beauty nap. When you wake up, your tasty breakfast is awaiting you. Just heat it up and tada... time to fill in your stomachs.

Traditionallly, tea eggs are made with Chinese black tea. By using earl grey tea as gravy base, you would get a slight citrus flavour and aroma from the Bergamot oil. Do you like Earl Grey? If yes, try this out! If you prefer the traditional taste, no problem, just substitute the Earl Grey tea with your regular Chinese black tea and it is done.

Earl Grey Tea Eggs

Ingredients

6 eggs
2 Earl Grey tea bags
2 inch cinnamon stick
4 tablespoon reduced salt light soy sauce
2 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon five spice powder
3 tablespoon sugar
2 cups water
pinch of salt

Cooking Directions

Place the eggs in a pot, add enough water to cover the eggs. Bring the water to boil and continue to cook for another 10 minutes until the eggs are cooked through.
Discard the water. Gently tap the eggs on table top to crack the eggshell (to create the marbling effect).
In a pot, put together all the ingredients and bring to a boil. Continue to simmer for another 1 hour (otherwise, you can simmer for another 5 minutes and transfer the tea eggs into a thermal pot).
Let the eggs sit in the tea mixture for at least 4 hours before serving.

Tips: Ideally, the tea mixture should cover your eggs while cooking. If your pot is too big relative to the amount of eggs you are making, you will need to make more tea mixture.

材料