Spotlight – Chinese Tea Leaf Eggs

Browsing the webs for more interesting egg ideas, I wandered across this by NoobCook.  If you’re not going to go for dying the outsides of eggshells this year, perhaps this would be a fun and tasty alternative!  I’ve seen these before and they always struck me as so beautiful…  I’ve also seen this done with different color teas, or adding beet (red) or red cabbage (blue) or other natural dyes to the pot, to create colors other than brown.

Chinese tea leaf eggs (also known as Chinese Marbled Eggs, Tea Leaf Eggs, Cha Ye Dan, 茶叶蛋/茶葉蛋) is a common street delight in Asia, including Singapore. They are really easy to make at home, especially when you use a slow cooker. I basically made some (almost) hard boiled eggs, made cracks all over the shells while leaving them intact, then I dump them into a slow cooker with some ingredients and let the slow cooker do its magic. Really super easy. If you do not have a slow cooker, you can simmer them in a soup pot. The kitchen, to my delight, is filled with the wonderful aroma of tea, herbs and spices – my kind of aromatherapy. It felt as if I had walked past a Chinese medical hall. One common complaint about tea leaf eggs I hear is that while the aroma smells superb when you walk past a shop selling them, they taste quite bland when you bite into it. I think the ones I made are quite savoury and yummy.

Chinese Tea Leaf Eggs (Cha Ye Dan) 茶叶蛋:  Get the Recipe!

Thanks so much to NoobCook for sharing your how-to!

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