Another breakfast follow up
During my post about
Chinese breakfast, I completely neglected to mention that typical
Chinese food the tea egg. Needless to say, alongside the mantous, baozis and
paper cups of fresh dou jiang sits a steaming, sometimes bubbling, always brown
and mysterious rice cooker full of eggs. They sit wrapped in their shells in a
dark brown liquid, dyed as such by a mixture of herbs and spices and left all
day to simmer or just to be kept at a warm temperature. They do not look
especially appetizing, but they are a quite flavourful and a good way to either
supplement your mantou or give you a little snack during the day. Under their
shells the flesh is dyed a soft brown colour, akin to a milky cup of instant
coffee. When bitten into the flavour is fairly salty, with a hint of that
pervasive Chinese spice flavour, a hint of aniseed and various other tastes too
numerous to pick out. They are eaten as breakfast items or as snacks, which are
known as 小吃, which literally translates as “little eats”,
another pleasing linguistic titbit from this endlessly entertaining language.
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