Chinese Spiced-Salt Prawns and Tea Egg Recipes

Darlings, since you asked so nicely, here are the recipes for the Spiced-Salt Prawns and the Tea Eggs. I will get the 1-2-3-4-5 Sticky Spareribs recipe up later this week.

Spiced-Salt Prawns

This recipe is from Yan Kit’s Classic Chinese Cookbook which is an excellent Chinese cookbook. The instructions are clear, the pictures are pretty, and I haven’t made a dud yet. I use Yan Kit’s Scallion Pancake recipe every year, too.

• 1 lb fresh or frozen medium shrimp in shells
• 2 tbsp salt
• 1 tsp five-spice powder
• 1 tsp ground roasted Szechwan peppercorns
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• peanut or corn oil for deep frying

1. Remove legs from shrimp and devein but keep the shells intact and on. If you use frozen, shell-on shrimp, they are already deveined. Just peel off the legs.

2. Make the spiced salt–heat a wok over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Add the salt and stir for about 4 minutes–until it’s hot and starts to look slightly grey. Transfer to a small bowl. To it add five-spice powder, the peppercorns and ground pepper. Mix.

4. Fill a wok or deep fryer with oil. Heat to 350. Add the shrimp and deep fry for 30 to 45 seconds or until they have curled up and turned bright (I think that this takes closer to a minute). Remove and drain .

5. Take out the oil from the wok. Wash and dry wok.

6. Reheat the wok until hot. Add 1tbsp of the spiced salt and put the shrimp in the wok as well. Flip and turn the shrimp and the salt in the wok for about 30-40 seconds. Make sure the shrimp are covered in the salt. Transfer the shrimp to a serving plate. The remaining salt mixture can be served with the shrimp for additional dipping.

Marbled Tea Eggs

My version is a hybrid of a number of different recipes since I make this every year.

• 6 eggs
• 3 tea bags or approx 3 tablespoons loose tea (black tea, oolong, your choice–even jasmine, I suppose)
• water to cover eggs
• 4 star anise pods
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1/4 cup soy sauce

1. Hard boil the eggs (I like to do the method when you bring the eggs to boiling, cover, and shut off the heat and let them sit in the hot water for 12-15 minutes to cook. This helps keep that greenish-grey ring from forming around the cooked yolk).

2. Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and rinse eggs under cool water  for about 5 minutes. Reserve the boiling water. When cool enough to touch, roll each egg on a hard surface or tap it with the back of a spoon to crackle the shells.

3. Bring the water to a boil again. Add the tea leaves, star anise, soy sauce, and cinnamon (you can also add other items like brown sugar, orange peel, cardamom–whatever tickles your fancy). Simmer, covered for about an hour or so.

4. Turn off the heat and let the eggs sit in the water, covered, overnight. You can, at this point, shell and serve the eggs or you can put the eggs, in the tea liquid, into the fridge. They will keep like this for several days.

The taste of the eggs isn’t changed too much via the marbling method, although they do take on the scent of whatever you boil them in. More than anything these are pretty. And people wonder how I made them. I am sure that you could make a stronger tasting egg by upping all of the spices/flavorings, however. I just haven’t tried that yet.

OK, so that’s that. Like I said, I will get the sticky spareribs recipe up soon.