Chinese tea eggs

Today I decided to give making chinese tea eggs (or cha daan) a go! The hubs was thrilled when I said I was going to make them as he's not had them since he was a little boy, when his mama used to use them as a bribe for going to the market with her in Hong Kong! They were surprisingly easy to make, but I think the 2 I left in the fridge for tomorrow will taste better as the flavour will have developed more!

Ingredients

6 eggs

4 cups of water

1 star anise

4 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp of five spice

3 tbsp of dry tea leaves (any black tea will do such as puh er tea)

Boil your eggs as usual in water until they're hard boiled. Once they're cooked, rinse them off in cold water and gently tap the shells to crack them (don't do his too hard as you don't want the shells to fall off!). In a slow cooker (or pan on the stove) place all the other ingredients. Place the eggs in the slow cooker and ensure they're covered with the water/soy sauce/spice mixture. Simmer for 2 hours (the longer the better so I simmered for about 4!) then leave to cool.  The longer you leave the eggs in the marinade the darker and more flavourful they'll be. Overnight in the fridge is probably best! Once you want to eat them, peel them! You should get a pretty marbling from the cracked shells! If you want you can dip them in soy sauce as you eat them but hubs said that would spoil the flavour :)

We ate ours with chicken congee and chilli bamboo shoots! Yummy!