Tea Leaf Eggs

Today when P stepped out of the house, I threw together the materials for this in half an hour. And left it there for a long while. And then it was done! Easy!

Tea Leaf Eggs

6 eggs
3 bags of black tea (chinese and english tea are both fine)
1 cinnamon stick (about 2 inches)
1 tsp chinese five spice powder
5 cloves
5 tbsp soy sauce
3 cups water

Boil eggs in plain water for about 3 minutes until solid.
Crack with the back of your spoon. These will form the marbled patterns on the eggs.
Put in the rest of the ingredients.
Simmer on low fire and steep for at least 2 hours.

DONE!

Fried Potato and Scrambled Eggs

My usual way of making scrambled eggs is to heat a bit of butter till really hot, then pour in the eggs which have already been beaten. The rest is the same, watch it carefully and stir continously, take it off the fire to prevent overcooking, and throw in a bit of milk/cream/creme fraiche at the point just before you consider it done, in order to slow the cooking process at the end and keep it soft and creamy.

The Gordon Ramsay method of scrambled eggs differs slightly from mine; he cracks the eggs whole straight into the pot, throws the knob of butter in. The rest is the same. For some reason I feel it tastes different. I prefer having the butter heated up on its own because I think it imparts some sort of 'nuttiness" to the scrambled eggs. But it could just be me....

1. Cut potatoes into cubes, season with salt, paprika and thyme
2. Fry in a little olive oil, stirring from time to time, until potato starts to fall apart
   
3. Meanswhile cook the scrambled eggs in another pot (see above methods)
   
4. Test the potato cubes if they are cooked through (this will depend on the size of cubes)
5. Serve when everything seems cooked

On hindsight: MAKE POTATO CUBES SMALLER

Deviled Eggs

This was an attempt at deviled eggs or some form of stuffed eggs in the absence of mayo AND butter. Not intentionally omitted, but we had just run out of everything. Nevertheless, although it was not particularly creamy, it was still quite tasty.

1. Put 8 large eggs in a pot of water. Make sure the eggs are all covered by at least an inch of water.
2. Put the egg pot on the stove. When water comes to a boil, start the egg timer for 5 minutes.
3. Meanswhile, in another bowl, combine 2 tablespoons olive oil, a dash of paprika, and 2 thinly sliced shallots.
4. At this point I suddenly panicked that the raw shallots might be too intense with their oniony flavour so I put this oily mixture into the microwave and zapped it for two minutes while lightly covering the top of the bowl - so that the oil wouldn't explode out (from the moisture of the shallots). This last-minute intervention seems to have done it no harm, but also didn't seem to cook it that much.
   
5. By now, after all this running about, the eggs should be done. Take them out of the water and peel them all. Cut the eggs in half and take the yolks out.
6. Mix the yolks with the shallot/oil mixture. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and paprika.
7. Spoon it back into the eggs.
8. Sprinkle with paprika.

Now you can have breakfast fingerfood party.