Tea Eggs

Tea eggs is a classic Chinese snack food that doesn't get much exposure in the west. Basically, it's a hard boiled egg that is marinated in a mixture of tea, soy sauce, salt, and star anise. There's two schools of thinking on making a tea egg - the faster hot method or the slower cold method.

In both cases, you start by boiling 10 to 15 eggs. You can double or triple the recipe if you like tea eggs and want to make for a crowd. Hard boil the egg. (Boil in salted water) For the cold method, expert egg boilers can attempt to cook the egg until the yoke fully sets but is still creamy to taste.

Hot method:
Once the egg is cooked, take the egg out and gently crack the shell without breaking it. This breaks the shell and allow the flavors to pass through the egg membrane and penetrate the egg.

For the pot, turn the heat to medium-low (just enough to keep the pot slightly simmering) and add 1 or 2 star anise, 2 or 3 Lipton tea bags, soy sauce and salt to taste. The steeping liquid should be a bit saltier than soup. Cook for 3-4 hours. Add water occasionally to replace the evaporated liquid.

Cold method:
Crack the egg and make the infusion like in the hot method. Then put everything in a container. Cool to room temperature and then place in a fridge. The eggs should be ready in 2 or 3 days.

Bonus tip:
This comes from the best home cook in my acquaintance. Cook by either the hot or cold method, then save the liquid and eggs in a container. Then reheat everything the next day and add a little extra soy sauce and an extra tea bag. You can also add more hard boiled eggs. Hot eggs will taste better than cold eggs and eggs that has marinated for a while will taste the best.