Marbled tea eggs

I don't remember the exact age I was when I first had one of these marbled tea eggs but I remember loving the salty taste paired with a delicate aroma of tea. We used to buy them from the old men with huge pots of these eggs sitting by the side of the road in China (when we went on vacation), I've never been too fussy about sanitation as I have never gotten sick in any form eating from one of these nice old men. The eggs were very cheap, often only 50c each (in US dollars that's less than 10c)! So the other day I had a bit of a craving and decided to look up this recipe online while also incorporating what I had learned from my mother the one time she made it. So here's the recipe I used compiled from many websites and with tweaks I made.

Chinese marbled tea eggs:

Ingredients:

- 8 eggs

- water

- 1/2 cup salt / soy sauce (add more if you want to make these eggs as a dish to go with rice instead of eating them plain)

- 2 tbsp Chinese five spice powder

- 8-10 star anise

- 1 tea bag (you can use jasmine tea or black tea, the taste of green tea is often too subtle for these eggs)

- 1 green onion (cut into 5cm lengths)

- 2 tbsp red sugar (this is different to brown sugar but brown sugar will work also)

- 2 tsp cinnamon powder / 1 stick of cinnamon

- ground black pepper (optional)

Method:

1. Place the eggs in a medium pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Then allow to simmer for 3-5 minutes.

2. Drain and cover with cold water to cool, drain again. Take each egg and gently crack the shell all over without actually letting it fall off (this will make the marbled effect so here is where you can be creative with the cracking!).

3. Cover the eggs with water once again, add all the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil on high heat. Once boiling, turn the heat down to medium-low / low and allow to simmer for an hour or more (to let the flavor really seep into the eggs).

4. You may choose to keep the eggs in the marinade so they can keep absorbing flavor or you can drain. The eggs can keep for anywhere between 4-10 days depending on how salty you made them (the saltier they are, the longer they keep). These eggs can be eaten hot or cold and are brilliant both ways!

I'm rather proud of how pretty my eggs turned out and they tasted good too (I made them not too salty because dad has high blood pressure and I made these so he could have some for lunch), next time Pete challenged me to try and make the cracks symmetrical hahaha, we'll see how that goes!