Growing up, I worked at my parents’ restaurant until I left home for college. Being the older kid in the family, I waited on tables and served tea and coffee to customers. I noticed many customers don’t sample the food before adding salt and pepper. Since I drink tea without any ingredients, I thought it was unusual to see customers add salt and pepper to thier tea. Now I know there are many ways to use tea, especially in cooking.

Here is a popular Chinese appetizer that makes a good snack any time.  Cook 6 eggs in water. After boiled, reduce heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes. In a teapot or pan, prepare tea with 4 servings of black tea and 3 cups of hot water. Brew the tea as usual and discard the tea leaves. Add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce to the tea, maybe some salt and pepper if you’d like. After the eggs are cooked and cool enough to handle, roll it on the counter to crack the egg shell. Do not remove the egg shells yet. Continue to simmer the eggs in hot water for 10 minutes. Let it cool and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight. It can be served as it is.

You can spice the egg yolks with Deviled Egg recipe or try this new one using crab meat.  It is another variation to adding flavors to egg yolk. Cut eggs in halves and separate the egg yolks. With the egg yolks, add 6 ounces of crab meat and 6 tablespoons of mayonnaise. Add diced pickled ginger, half teaspoon of rice wine vinegar, salt and pepper to flavor it. Add a teaspoon of the crab meat on the egg halves. Garnish with chives, parsley or cilantro.

What a great idea to add these marbleized eggs during Easter. As a matter of fact, my daughter used this same technique to color Easter Eggs. By using food die, we made many marvelous marbleized eggs during Easter.

Darjeeling Black tea and Earl Grey de la Crème are now available from our website at www.morninggloryteahouse.com.