Mes amis, today the French Revolutionaries celebrated egg hatcheries, couvoirs. I’ve decided to translate this into an egg dish (rather than a baby chick dish). Calling back to earlier this week when we assembled the monster of a dish, Po Kok Gai, from the Fat Rice cookbook, you’ll notice it was topped with tea eggs. I have quite enjoyed these at Fat Rice when we’ve gotten their namesake dish and was excited to try to make them.

Tea Eggs 

2 cups water

1/2 cup of tea leaves

1/2 tsp of Sichuan pepper

2 cinnamon sticks

2 inch piece of fresh ginger, sliced thinly

3 whole star anise

1 cup soy sauce

4 eggs

Bring the water to a boil and add all but the soy sauce and eggs. Simmer for 10 minutes and then remove from the heat. Add the soy sauce and strain the mixture to remove the solids. Let it cool to room temperature. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the eggs gently. Cook for 12 minutes (or less if you like them a bit jammy). After the eggs have cooked, place them in a bowl of ice water to cool off. Peel the eggs when cooled and put them in the marinade. I had to weigh down the eggs with a bowl so they would be completely submerged, and I still got some white spots where the eggs pressed against the side of the container. Not sure how to avoid that! refrigerate the eggs in the marinade for an hour, remove the eggs from the marinade and enjoy!