Tuesday, Nov 9, 2010 2:01 AM UTC

Eggs on the go: Taiwanese tea eggs

You won't have to go to Taiwan to get these hard-boiled eggs perfumed with jasmine tea and soy sauce

By Linda Shiue

more
- All Share Services

Topics: Food traditions, Kitchen Challenge, Food, Life News

In a few weeks, the roads will be congested with cars full of families on their way to Thanksgiving gatherings. Airports and bus and train terminals will be crowded, and delays will fray nerves. Kids will be whining, “Are we there yet?”

Believe it or not, I’m envious. While I am no more patient than the average traveler, I’ve always been wistful about not having extended family around. Growing up with all of my extended family in Taiwan, we’d have to wait every three years or so to make the costly and long 15-hour journey from New York to Taipei.

Sentimental longing aside, I dreaded our occasional trips to Taiwan. The biggest problem was that we always visited in the summer, when Taiwan’s heat and humidity could rival a sauna. Add to that crowded living conditions, treacherous traffic and squat toilets (you don’t want to know). It was a lot for an American kid to get used to, much less enjoy. The part of our trips that I enjoyed without qualification were the train journeys, which would transport us from Taipei in the north to the less dense, more tropical and less hurried Southern cities of Kaoshiung and Tainan. The trains provided a serene refuge from the steamy cacophony outside. Something about the rhythmic motion of a train lulls passengers into a cooperative calm. While air travel has passed the era of glamour and luxury, train travel represents a slower-paced, romantic era. Taking a train means choosing to sit back, relax and enjoy the view. You can’t be in a rush to get there on trains.

I wouldn’t want to rush. I appreciate how much more I notice when I am forced to slow down. I remember passing acres of rural land dotted with Buddhist temples and plantations growing pineapple and bananas. I also remember the small details from those Taiwanese train trips — the simple metal cup holders next to each seat, a net pouch affixed to the backs. What made these receptacles special is what I got to fill them with. Within minutes of departure from Taipei’s Central Station, after the conductor collected everyone’s tickets (I loved the official and mysterious-seeming hole punching), the equivalent of a flight attendant entered to roll her metal cart down the aisle. My whole family was excited, and we kept all of our eyes glued to the cart as it made its way down the aisle. For me and my brother, it was a rare opportunity to buy whatever we wanted to eat, in a rare, sentiment-fueled departure from my father’s usual frugality. My mother was overjoyed to snack on the tastes of her childhood, and for a brief moment, enjoy respite from the daily responsibility of feeding us all.

The attendant had hot flasks of Taiwan’s excellent gao shan cha (a green tea) and oolong tea, which she poured into tall, clear glasses that fit into the metal cup holders. There were snacks galore — peanuts, crackers, cookies, and also more exotic offerings of orange-scented beef jerky and dried, shredded squid that tasted of the ocean. I loved all of it. But my favorite treat was more substantial — the ben-dong. These box lunches, named after the bentos of Taiwan’s former Japanese occupiers, contained the simplest, more home-style tastes of Taiwanese cooking. A common combination might be soy sauce braised pork, Chinese greens and a “tea egg,” a hard-boiled egg cooked in a broth of soy sauce, aromatics and tea. It was all neatly packaged in a compartmentalized box with fluffy, sticky white steamed rice. There’s something about food packed for a journey that makes it taste better than it otherwise might. I have never forgotten those tastes.

Taiwan has changed a lot in the past 30 years. Taipei is even more densely populated, and its drivers remain among the most insane in the world, but it actually feels less congested now, thanks in large part to an excellent subway system. Squat toilets still exist for those who prefer them, but it’s no problem now to find clean “Western-style” toilets. Most people still choose to buy their groceries daily from vendors on the street, but there’s also Carrefour and Costco if that’s your style. What hasn’t changed is my family’s preferred mode of transport down South: the train.

A few years ago, Taiwan introduced a high-speed rail combining the technology and design of Japan’s fabled Bullet Train and France’s TGV. This is a Train with a capital T. The employees’ uniforms are also sleek, with European flair. The train stations are spotless, modern and comfortable. Seeing the multiple Starbucks outlets in Taipei’s train station made me fear that I wouldn’t find any Taiwanese food on board. So I popped into the nearest 7-Eleven to load up on train snacks. 7-Eleven, you ask? Definitely; in Asia, 7-Eleven is a viable eating option. Instead of hot dogs and Big Gulps, you can get steamed pork buns, dim sum and tea eggs. I bought a bunch of tea eggs, as well as packets of crisp snacks.

I settled the kids into their seats and then sat down, marveling again at how chic and sophisticated everything looked. Soon, the jauntily outfitted conductor came to collect our tickets, and we waited for the train to start moving. Within five minutes, the attendant entered with her food trolley. Like all the other train workers, she was smartly dressed. The food packaging also looked more modern (and probably cleaner). At my request, the attendant opened the lid of a sample ben-dong. I was thrilled to see that the meal it contained was identical to what I remembered from long ago. I bought one to share with the family, and added it to our overflowing stash of train snacks.

I made sure my daughters tasted the same flavors of Taiwan on their journey that I had, to nourish more than their bodies. I wanted them to form their own memories — the kind that might beckon them to return, to satiate their hunger.

Taiwanese Tea Eggs

Serves 6

Ingredients

6 eggs and enough water to hard-boil
½ cup dark soy sauce (if unavailable, you can substitute regular soy sauce , but it will not be as intense)
3 cups water
2 tablespoons sugar
3 pieces star anise
1 cinnamon stick
2 teaspoons jasmine tea leaves (traditionally, black tea leaves are used, but I prefer the fragrance of jasmine-scented green tea)

Directions

Hard-boil eggs in water. Allow to cool.
Prepare braise by combining other ingredients and bringing to a boil.
Once eggs are cool enough to handle, gently but firmly crack the shells until you have many little cracks all over the shell. Do not remove shell.
Place cracked, hard-boiled eggs into the braise and simmer at low heat for half an hour.
Turn off heat and allow eggs to steep in the braise for at least two hours, or overnight in the refrigerator. The longer they steep the darker the color and the stronger the flavor.
When ready to eat, remove eggs from the braising liquid and carefully remove eggshells.

More Linda Shiue.

more
- All Share Services

The week in 10 pics

close X

Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin
Recent Slide Shows

7 Comments

RSS Feeds

Get Email Updates

SALON

Eggs on the go: Taiwanese tea eggs

You won't have to go to Taiwan to get these hard-boiled eggs perfumed with jasmine tea and soy sauce