茶叶蛋 Tea Leaf Eggs (Half boiled )

During one of the Chinese New Year I was planning to bake a kueh lapis cake but my oven decided to go on strike so I had to ditch the plan. But not before I already bought 5 boxes of eggs! Stuck with so many eggs, I decided to cook tea leaf eggs (茶叶蛋) since this is one fast route to get rid of one box of eggs at a shot. However I was not satisfied with the regular tea leaf eggs. And my last round with this dish wasn't that fantastic either when I followed the recipe that came along with the tea leaf egg herbs sold by Eu Yan Sang. So I decided to tweak it a bit: I will cook it without the shells (so that the marinade really gets into the eggs) and I want wobbly yolks (like those in Ramen!). So here is what I did:

Ingredients:

- 10 eggs (60gm sized)

Marinade:

- 1 sachet of Eu Yan Sang tea leaf eggs herbs
- 500ml water
- 1 tbsp dark soya sauce1

- 1 tbsp light soya sauce1

- 50-60 gm rock sugar1

Method:

1. Bring the herbs and water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the remaining seasoning and taste to adjust seasoning1 if necessary. Lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool completely.

2. Put the eggs in a pot of room temperature water deep enough to cover the eggs completely. Bring it to a boil. Stir the eggs gently while waiting for the water to come to a boil.

3. When the water comes to a boil, lower the heat to a simmer and continue to simmer the eggs for 4.5 minutes2.

4. Remove the eggs from heat immediately and rinse under running tap water till they feel just barely warm to touch. Leave it aside to cool completely in a bowl of water. Peel the eggs when cooled.

5. Soak the peeled eggs in the cooled marinade sauce overnight in the fridge. Make sure the eggs are put into a small based glass container so that they get fully covered by the marinade.

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Notes:

1. The seasoning amounts are pretty much up to own preference. Above stated amounts are suited to my palate and it is not too salty. If u prefer a saltier version, you can add a pinch of salt or more light soy sauce.

2. Most recipes making eggs with runny yolks require an ice bath for the eggs once they are removed from the heat but I didn't keep ready made ice cubes in my freezer, so lazy me rinsed the eggs under running tap water till they were just warm to touch and I soaked it in a bowl of room temperature water for complete cooling. For this entry I simmered the eggs for 4.5 minutes but the yolks were not runny enough for me, so I will advise 3 or 3.5 minutes (tried 4 minutes before too and still way too cooked for me) of simmering. If you are using an ice bath, u might want to simmer for 4.5 minutes since that will cool down the eggs (hence stop further cooking) faster than my lazy method.

Tamago Boro Biscuits (小馒头)

How many of us love the Japanese little egg bun biscuits AKA 小馒头? I think many. I myself simply love to eat these! However they are very expensive! My kids love them too and I like that they are bite sized and toddler friendly but I don't like the idea that I will be giving my kids too much commercial cookies if I buy them often enough (I prefer to let my kids eat homemade cookies or sold by bakeries, not commercial ones with long expiry dates and sold in supermarkets). Hence I Googled online for the recipe to make them. I tried one some time back but the end product was utterly disappointing. It tasted nothing like the real thing and the texture was hard like rocks! It did looked like the real thing though. LOL.

 

I was browsing through Facebook (Baking's Corner iirc) today when I saw someone asking for recipes for 小馒头 and I tried one of the recipes someone posted in the comments and voila! This one works! It is not the 100% perfect recipe compared to the commercial one but it is VERY close. Please remember to read the notes at the end of this entry to see how you might want to further tweak my adapted recipe to bring it even closer to the commercial one.




My favourite Tamago Boro!

Tamago Boro Biscuits

Recipe adapted from: food4tots

Ingredients:
- 125 gm potato starch
- 20 gm cake flour
- 20 gm milk powder¹
- 40 gm icing sugar²
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 egg³
- 2-3 tsp corn oil
- some cake flour for dusting

Method:
1. Sift all dry ingredients together. Set aside.

2. Add oil to the egg and beat with a fork. Start with 2 tsp of oil. If the final dough gets too dry at step 3, then add a bit more oil after you have mixed in the flours. There is no need to whip the egg mixture. Just beat sufficiently to mix it till homogenous.

3. Add egg mixture to dry mixture and using the fork, mix it into a dough. The dough texture resembles that of the mooncake skin dough.

4. Line your baking tray with baking paper. Working with one big tablespoon of dough each time, roll that small dough between your palms to form a log. Pinch off the log bit by bit to form the biscuits. It is very important the balls are very small, about 1/8 tsp sized. Place the pinched pieces on the baking tray. Dust your hands with cake flour from time to time.⁴

5. Once you are done pinching the small log, go back to the pinched pieces on the tray and roll them into balls using your palms. If you are good with your hands, you can even pinch and roll them into balls using your fingertips as you go about it. Repeat this until you finish rolling the dough into tiny balls. This is the most time consuming (hence tedious) part of the whole recipe. Rope in your older kids to help!

6. Mist the tray of balls lightly with water.

7. Bake in a preheated oven at 170C⁵ (fan forced) for 10-12min.

This recipe yields only a small container of Tamago Boro!

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Notes:

1.  I used my kids' formula milk powder.

2. If baking for children, 40gm of icing sugar will be sufficient but if you want the same sweetness as the store-bought Tamago Boro, I suggest increasing this to 50gm.

3. I used the egg my mother bought which unfortunately I have no idea how big but I'm guessing it is the typical 50/55gm sized. I will use the 60gm sized egg which I usually use, for next round because my mother did comment that the final product seems to be a little harder (less melt in mouth) compared to the store bought ones.

4. The dough is a bit soft and might stick to your hands/fingers from time to time. Prepare a big plate with some cake flour in it and rub your hands/fingers with the cake flour when that happens.

5. I baked mine at 170C for 10-12min and some of the biscuits got a little bit too brown. I will bake at 160C for 12-15min for next round.