By Chinese peppercorns, do you mean what I kn ow as Szechwan peppercorns?...Red...small and hot in a different way than black pepper?
Linda C

Yes, that's them. I see multiple tea egg picture postings in our future . . .

And do you simmer the eggs another 2 hours after they are hard boiled??

Those are her directions. I suppose simmering is needed to get the good stuff out of the peppercorns, anise, etc.

You going to make them some time soon?
Report back! LOL!
I was wondering if you simmered the spices then added the eggs..but reading, I guess not...
Sounds good....but perhaps rock hard??
never eaten tea eggs...

I've always wanted to try making them - I thought it would be a much more complicated process. After your first post on this thread I Googled recipes, most pretty similar to yours but I didn't see any others with apple (or Chinese peppercorns for that matter). I have everything needed and I like the addition of the Szechwan peppercorns and red peppers. Does the apple do anything chemically or just add a little sweetness?

I can't wait to hear how yours turn out and you're right, I think there will be more tea egg postings.

Lee

Foods I am nostalgic about:

Bread pudding with raisins.

Milk toast made for me by Mom when I was sick abed with a childhood disease.

Oranges cut in half and sectioned like grapefruit, sweetened with maple syrup. I had this at breakfast when staying with grandma on the farm.

Strawberry jam made with wild strawberries. And, especially, the foam I got to eat which was skimmed off the top during cooking.

Not having grown up in a Chinese household, tea eggs are something I discovered later in life, along with congee and sweet bean milk. Tea eggs look to me as if they are made of polished marble because of the veining.

John, can you tell me how to use those tiny dried shrimp and fish I see in Asian markets? Are they eaten in congee or are they used to flavor a broth and strained out? Just what do you do with them?

Jim

Oh something else I just remembered--black raspberries. That is something you really have to grow on your own, and have to have room for, which I do not. Grandma had a patch in back of her garden. Picked fresh, served either in a bowl with cream or mooshed onto bread spread with butter and sugar. If I ever get enough garden space I am planting a row of black raspberries! I love them so much more than blackberries!

Matzohbrei is another fond childhood memory food. I can make that too, but I just don't for some reason. Also something called "Lukshen Kugel" or "Lokshen Kugel" which for us was bubbe's homeade noodles, cottage cheese and cinnamon sugar. The name means "noodle pudding." I just don't eat these sugar and carb heavy things as an adult!

jon do you have a recipe for a savory thin pancake i think made with rice flour, crispy on the outside but kind of chewy on the inside, i remember my mom making it, similar to green onion pancakes ,last year I acquired a taste for thousand year old eggs mix into congee, also was served a spinach dish served with thousand year old eggs and salted duck eggs;pork belly and taro, yum.

jimster: "how to use those tiny dried shrimp and fish I see in Asian markets? Are they eaten in congee or are they used to flavor a broth and strained out? Just what do you do with them?"

We soaked them in congee and soup, and ate them. I don't know if that is Chinese haute cuisine, or merely what was done in my grandparents' home. My family comes from rough-hewn country villages in Southern China, we are not refined Northern city folk.

"jon do you have a recipe for a savory thin pancake i think made with rice flour, crispy on the outside but kind of chewy on the inside, i remember my mom making it, similar to green onion pancakes ,last year I acquired a taste for thousand year old eggs mix into congee, also was served a spinach dish served with thousand year old eggs and salted duck eggs;pork belly and taro, yum."

No, I'm still working on making the green onion pancakes actually.

My father makes those pancakes when he visits us, and (bad son!) I haven't yet lifted a finger to help. As I recall, his process is something like this: mix regular wheat flour with water to make a simple dough, pound and roll into a big flat rectangle, liberally oil and salt the upper side of the dough, spread a ridiculous amount of chopped green onions over the oiled dough, along with some garlic, then roll the dough into a fat cylinder. Store in refrigerator. When you want to make some pancakes, cut a 1'' piece of the dough cylinder, flatten it into a pancake shape, so the pancake is sort of a smashed-flat spiral of dough, oil, green onions, garlic and salt, and fry away. If you don't smash it too thin and fry it hot enough, this pancake becomes crispy and browned on the outside and chewy on the inside.

I am quite sure this doesn't feature in any Chinese gourmet cooking book - it is simple home cooking/street vendor type food.

I don't think my grandmother did the spiral part, actually. She is 101 years old now and no longer cooks but her housekeeper doesn't do the spiral part either. Maybe that is a weird habit of my father's - wouldn't be the only one . . .

dgkritch: ''I loved the fried bread with a hole in the middle and an egg cooked in it (I'm sure it has a name, but ours didn't).''

Every 5 year old knows that is called ''eggy in the hole'' :-)

Maangchi has a side dish recipe that adds the cracked eggs - scroll down this recipe for a picture of the eggs.

I've had the egg in the whole.

The fried bread I was talking about was a yeast, sweet dough, fried and dipped in sugar. I hate sweets now so it sounds gross!

Yeah, guys, it IS called, absolutely, unequivocally, " eggy in the hole". And at other times, it is called, "eggy in the whole(hole) in the middle"--and in recipe books and other formal places, it is fancily called, "spit in the eye" and it's very good...where buttery, pan toasted bread is fried and somewhat crispy, with a hole torn out of the middle, and the egg is plopped in and cooked, and why it isn't called, plopped eggy in the hole in the middle, I haven't a clue. From 30 years ago, I can attest to the fact that it is very, very, tasty.

I know it as "toad in the hole". The secret is to use lots of butter. :o)
Teresa, how did you manage to develop a hatred for sweets, I could use some tips!! Sweets are my downfall.

In my house, we call it "egg and a hat". It is a staple here, most mornings at least one of my kids requests it. I serve it with two slices of buttered toast sliced into 5 strips, for dipping.

My cousins, from Queens, call it "bullseye".

I still love them.

Jo

Petra, we always called it "toad in a hole" too, but hopefully Jo still loves us both too...

annie

In my ex's family the egg fried in the hole in the bread was called a Sunday Night Special. When I made it (back in my other life) I always fried the circle of cut-out bread too as an extra treat to be spread with jam or honey. Not that I would eat such a thing......it has a runny yolk after all! But I made them for the ex and our boys.

Teresa

wow what a terrific thread! i remember being at my grams and drinking sanka coffee and cinnamon/sugaer toast and her trying to get her socks on but my dog tig kept stealing them lol (sorry little off topic but it was funny). also at my nanas milk toast...homemade bread toasted on the woodstove, warm milk poured over it with sugar on top. childhood memories...love them!!!

Petra - the smell of chocolate makes me sick and one of my sisters is allergic to it. I also can't stand the sweet smell of ripe mangoes or papayas.

I liked some sweets as a kid, but not cake. I always wanted a cherry pie for my birthday, but would only eat a small piece. As I've gotten older the tastes I lean toward are: hot/spicy, salty and tart/sour. A treat for me is one of my refrigerator dills that I've put a few of the hot Hmong peppers in. Or the saltiest Greek green olives from Bill's Imported Foods mixed with his pepperocini. The trick is to keep myself from eating too many - just like some people are with sweets. When I crave salt eat capers. I just have some wierd taste cravings I guess.

My mother always tells the story about my babysitter Nancy asked us "who wants a rootbeer float?" I was about 4 yrs old and I replied - "I do, but without the ice cream!"

Tea eggs

Hard boil eggs, then crack and combine with this plus enough water to cover

Bring to boil then simmer for a couple hours, then marinate for a day or so

Peel this

And get this

It turns out to be dead easy.

Looks perfect, did the Chinese peppercorns and the chiles give them a little zingy bite? Did you just serve them plain, or with something accompanying them?

I think I'd like them plain but also as the protein portion of a large salad plate meal, maybe with a light rice vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil vinaigrette.

If there are any left over, do you store them unpeeled in the marinade or drained?

How did the rest of your family like them?

Thanks for sharing the recipe and the great picture tutorial.

Lee

I'm still marinating the others. I'm told the marinade can be frozen and re-used. The eggs can be stashed in the refrigerator like any hardboiled egg. I am not sure how much difference the peppercorns and apples made, not having made a batch without.

"dgkritch: ''I loved the fried bread with a hole in the middle and an egg cooked in it (I'm sure it has a name, but ours didn't).''
Every 5 year old knows that is called ''eggy in the hole'' :-)"
Well, my Mom called them "bullseyes" (I LOVE the fried cut out circle, always save it for last :-) ), and I've alsoe heard it called "Toad in the hole". "Toad in the hole" is also a name here for fried link sausages baked into Yorkshire pudding batter (very nice).
I miss my Mom's fried spaghetti most, I think. When we had leftover spaghetti and bolognese sauce she would fry it up together for lunch the next day. I've never been able to properly replicate it. Baked custard is also a favourite, and real comfort food as that's what Mom made when we were sick.

We call the egg fried in the hole in the bread "egg in a basket." Alice often makes that for herself.

My grandmother made French toast often. It was drowned in melted butter and liberally covered with powdered sugar. No syrup. I also loved her fried chicken which I never make.

I love the tea eggs. I've never had one but I think I will make some soon.

I hate to be dense....but I am still not sure about the eggs. do you simmer the marinade, then put the eggs in and marinate them for a day or two ( refrigerate or not?) or do you boil them in the marinade and then allow to sit in that stuff for a day or 2?
They are pretty enough to make a bowlful and use as a centerpiece.
Linda C

BTW, regarding tea eggs, you can get very fancy with this by using food coloring.

After the first coloring, paint over the cracks with wax and crack again and color with second color, ----- so on.

John, Great thread!

dcarch

lindac: ''I hate to be dense....but I am still not sure about the eggs. do you simmer the marinade, then put the eggs in and marinate them for a day or two ( refrigerate or not?) or do you boil them in the marinade and then allow to sit in that stuff for a day or 2? ''

The latter. Simmer eggs in marinade for a couple hours. Then keep marinating eggs for hours or days. I refrigerated because am letting them marinate for days, but for one day I wouldn't bother w/ the refrigerator.

I'd invite folks to post pictures of their childhood comfort foods, be they eggy-in-the-hole or matzohbrei. Pictures of your nana are optional.

I'm having fun with this. Think a bowl of congee w/ dried fish and pickled veg is going to be breakfast chez johnliu very soon.

GREAT idea for a Cookalong! "Favorite's from grandma!"

Those tea eggs are beautiful. I will ask my Shanghainese dil about those. She is a wonderful cook and may have paid attention if and when those were served. I appreciate this post. Her last name is LU. A pretty common name so I am told.

Just remembered the other family name for the egg in the hole is "One Eyed Egyptians" :-) When DD was little she pronounced it "One Eye Dipped-Ins", which is pretty appropriate ;-)
Muat try some tea eggs, they look good.

Westsider40, if your DIL wants to share some recipes or tips, whether in this or a separate thread, I'd be all ears. There is not too much discussion of Chinese cooking here.

Here was breakfast this morning.

I'm getting interested in remembering what these foods are called in English and in Chinese, so here's a run-through. I don't know how to show Chinese characters on GW, though.

Congee, or rice soup. The dictionaries say this is ''zhao'' in Mandarin, which confuses me, since we called it ''xi fan'' (water rice). I guess it's like ''eggy in the hole'' versus ''bullseye.''

Tea eggs. In Mandarin, ''cha ye dan'' or ''tea and egg''.

Shu mai. This is ''shao mai'' in Mandarin, which doesn't mean pork or dumplings or anything food-like. It means ''cook sell'', which makes some sense, being what you do with these things if you are a street vendor, but illustrates why Chinese is difficult to learn. Many of the names of things are more poetic than literal, making it hard to do a one-for-one translation from English. Alternative spellings like ''siu mai'' derive from other Asian languages or dialects, like Cantonese. I know, these should be homemade, but I was lazy today.

Pork sung, or ''rou song'' in Mandarin. ''Rou'' is meat, and ''song'' is loose/fluffy, so this is a straightforward term. There is also a similar dried, shredded fish product, ''yu song''.

Long doughnuts. These are ''you tiao'', the first meaning ''oil'' in Mandarin, and the second being a general term for long thin objects. A baker could figure out how to make these. I'm not any sort of baker, so I bought them frozen and browned them in the deep fryer.

Dried tofu, sliced into matchsticks. Tofu is ''dou fu'' in Mandarin. ''Dou'' is ''bean'' and ''fu'' means rotten, fermented, etc. But dried tofu is ''dou gan'', ''gan'' being ''dry''.

Enough with that. How was this breakfast received? Well, the kids liked it pretty well. SWMBO put cinnamon and sugar into her congee, which is appalling but understandable. I think it was healthier than omelettes, roesti, and sausages - and less work. So I'm going to sneakily try to edge the family in this direction. Next Sunday - yay, kids, fish for breakfast!

I think your breakfast looks great. I'm curious about what seasonings/garnishes are in your congee (in addition to the sliced scallions). I was thinking how good a dim sum meal would be and we do have one very good restaurant for dim sum not too far away. I love your discussions, pictures and recipes about Chinese food.

I bought some Chinese eggplant at the Asian market a couple of days ago that I want to use tomorrow. Do you have a favorite recipe for that?

Lee

You did a great job with that breakfast, John. I would have loved it.

Jim

How about wraping bacon around the shu mai? scramble some eggs around the tea eggs?

Just kidding!! Haha!

Definitely you have given many healthy options for breakfast.

There is a place in NYC which only serves congee for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I am going to have find out where.

dcarch

Not much seasoning in the congee. Soy sauce, sesame oil, hoisin sauce, and a little chili sauce. It's like regular rice - you use the rice as your ''plate'' and it gets seasoned by the rest of the food.

dcarch, that place reminds me of a noodle place I love, mid town, something like 55th and 5th. ''Men Kui Tei''. Ramen, gyoza, char sui, and not much else. I love turning in an expense report that has a $10 dinner in Manhattan, I think it is funny.

on a cold winter day or any day, congee with savory condiments yum. my family usually makes congee with the thanksgiving turkey carcass, most of the grandchildren enjoy the congee party more than thanksgiving

lsr2002: ''Chinese eggplant at the Asian market a couple of days ago that I want to use tomorrow. Do you have a favorite recipe for that?'' and ''we do have one very good restaurant for dim sum''

Sorry, I overlooked this. I don't like eggplant much, thus have never learned to cook it.

Good dim sum = heaven. We have a couple of decent dim sum places in Portland, the very best of those is merely above-average by SF Bay Area standards though.

The only tips I have on dim sum are
- if steamed stuff is sticky (e.g. the shrimp dumplings stick together) it suggests the food was steamed a while ago and then reheated, not good
- if hot food comes in a little metal steamer basket that is cold, it means the food was microwaved and simply placed in the basket for service, also not good

What a great thread! I love dim sum although I only had it once, in Chinatown in NYC. It was a VERY memorable experience. We were one of the few non-Chinese groups in the restaurant. I had velvet corn soup that was unlike anything I had ever experienced (Don't ask me why my uncle got it into his head to order soup in addition to all the trays of dim sum, but he did and I'm glad). I love Chinese food, although I'm not very good at making it and I don't much care for it in most restaurants due to all the MSG and the stuff being pretty fatty and not very fresh. Fortunately I've had a few good experiences with it at some nicer restaurants, but nothing good and home cooked like your spread. At least you had more luck with your attempt to expose your family to food memories from childhood. When I made matzohbrei last week for my gentile boyfriend, his joking comment was: "Don't ever make this slop again." (Sophisticated fare it is not!) No problem, more for me. Good thing goy boy redeemed himself later that day by giving me a foot massage after a day of hiking. Long live Matzohbrei and congee!!

Posted by lpinkmountain "----What a great thread! I love dim sum although I only had it once, in Chinatown in NYC. It was a VERY memorable experience. We were one of the few non-Chinese groups in the restaurant. ----"

Memorable! just want to inform you guys of one of the interesting thing about going to a real dim sum place.

It is perfectly traditional, acceptable and common practice that tables are shared. Don't be shocked if the waiter seats another party or two with you wiothout asking.

The good news is that you are in fact having real good quality dim sum. :-)

dcarch

Talk about childhood memories! I must have been maybe 12ish when we went for dim sum. The place was mobbed, mobbed and quite overwhelming for small town girl me. Everyone spoke only Chinese, including the waiters. We had no idea what all the little dim sum treats were, so that was an adventure. I pretty much like everything so to me it was raucous and fun, the stuff coming out of the kitchen and having to grab it quick before it was gone and you missed it, and then when you did get something, not even knowing if you would like it or not! Oh, and I remember that was the first time I had seen lotus blossom as a food. That would be a fun thread, on dim sum!

sorry, i don't want to offend anyone but i have never had another party seated at the same dim sum table, ever, it is not common practice because at dim sum houses the waiter keeps track of your charges by counting the plates, and SF bay area has some really good places

It's probably not a good idea to generalize about dim sum restaurants. I've been to dim sum places in NYC, Boston, SF, Montreal, Cincinatti and other cities. There were all sorts of differences in the type of seating, the way food was ordered and delivered and the way the tab was calculated. Everything from booth seating to big round tables. From menu ordering to trays to rolling carts. From counting dishes to checking off items on a paper tab. I enjoyed all of it.

Jim

Do you ever notice that some dim sum carts are mobbed by the diners, and others are ignored?

I always wonder, why does one lady get the great shrimp ball and shu mai cart, and the other gets the forlorn tripe cart? How do they assign the carts? Are the cart-pushing ladies paid based on how much their cart sells? Do they fight over the best carts, back in the steamy kitchen? All a mystery to me.

I also remember dim sum being a pretty chaotic experience, when I was a kid. Harassed cart ladies squeezing through crowded tables, patrons yelling ''xiao mei! xiao mei!'' - basically ''waitress! waitress!'' - or getting up and steering the cart lady toward their table, waiters threading through the bodies with dishes held high, little kids underfoot everywhere. My cousins and I were very bad, we would sneak under the giant round tables, hidden by the tablecloth, and giggle as the adults looked for us. At the end of the meal the adults would all fight over the bill, everyone wanted the honor of paying for the meal.

I've eaten dim sum in NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco. I was thrilled when a good dim sum restaurant opened in the neighborhood in Denver that has a high proportion of Asian residents, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Laotian. Our Japanese residents are mostly in the downtown area with Korean citizens living in both areas and in one of the suburbs, there are some very good restaurants in all these areas along with some very good Indian restaurants but good dim sum was lacking for many years until a small family restaurant in the Denver Asian area, there are long waits on the weekend days, Then about two years ago the same family opened a second restaurant, much fancier than the original, about twenty minutes from our home. The dim sum is just as delicious with a greater selection, on carts or to special order from a list, and the restaurant is very beautiful with large round carved dark wood tables as well as smaller rectangular ones, a very large live fish tank you can select from and beautiful etched glass panels dividing the space. I'm sure a lot weddings and special events are held there. A large raised area at the end can hold three round tables for 10 guests each. Not only is the food really good, the atmosphere lovely, but the family has also managed to maintain the same friendly and good service that is at there original location. No tea ggs though, maybe they are not a dim sum dish. But they are still on my to try list.

Thanks for telling me about the congee, John, and it's fine that you are not an eggplant fan - I have recipes, just always looking for new ideas.

Lee

John,

This is a wonderful thread to get into food and culture. I don't want to highjack the thread. Since you are the one who have initiated this topic, perhaps you can start the cultural aspect of Dim Sum discussion somehow? I feel that before I mentioned about the seating custom is really off-topic. My fault.

dcarch

lpinkmountain has started that thread, which is great - thanks! I've got to cook dinner but will check back later.

Yes great! I just saw that.

Have a great dinner.

dcarch