Cooking Lesson: Tea Eggs

We all have something that we want that we would give our kidneys for. This is what I would give mine for: Tea Eggs!! These little buggers are small packages of deliciousness overload at an extremely cheap price. In Taiwan, these are sold in EVERY convienence stores. But here in the good ol' US of A, these little bundles of joy have become a rarity. 

But have no worries, for I shall teach you how to make them with easy to find materials!

Materials: 
-10 large eggs 
-1/4 cup red tea leaves OR 3 red tea bags
-2 aniseeds (may be harder to find)
-5 cups of water
-1 teaspoon of peppercorn seeds

Spices:
-2 teaspoons of salt
-1 tablespoon of soy sauce
-1 tablespoon of 5-spice powder

Directions:
1) Place eggs into a large pot, and fill water until all eggs are covered. Bring water to boil, then turn off the stove. Cover the pot and use the steam to cook the eggs. Cover for 15-20mins. 
2) Remove eggs and place into cold water bath. Gently crack the egg shells (with spoon) so that the eggs can absord the flavors during the broiling process.
3) With a new pot, place the remaining ingredients (tea bags, water, spices, etc) and bring to boil with low heat.
4) Place the cracked eggs into the pot, and broil for at least 1 hour on low heat. 
5) Remove tea bags after 1 hour, and the tea eggs are ready to be served. 

TIP: If you want more flavors, you can let the eggs sit in the pot overnight, and enjoy them next day. The flavors will be rich by then. 

I can almost smell it already. Ahhhh...

rOar