A Month-of-Eggs: Five-Spiced Eggs in Ham Cups

Five-Spice Baked Eggs in Ham Cups

This could be the easiest recipe this month. There is hardly any me in it. So wouldn’t you know this would get his highest tongues up rating! Go figure!

When I complained (okay, whined) about how the rating was unfair since it was so simple. He apologized. “Okay. Warn me about how many tongues up I should give a recipe.”   

<my hands thrown up in air> “No, no. You have to be honest.” Oh, well, right?

You can make your own Chinese Five-Spice powder, or you can purchase it in the spice section of your grocery. Chinese Five-Spice powder includes: anise, star anise, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. Yummers!

Five-Spiced Eggs in Ham Cups (serves 1)

2 very thin deli ham slices

1 egg

Chinese Five-Spice powder, a sprinkle

½ English muffin, toasted

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Put one slice of ham in a muffin cup, its side hanging over the top of the cup.

Put another slice opposite, with its side hanging over the top.

Crack an egg into the opening of overlapping slices. You will have to push aside bunched up ham to keep the egg within the ham.

Sprinkle with a bit of Chinese Five-Spice powder and put in oven.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, depending upon how runny you like your eggs.

Lift out of the muffin cup and place on the toasted English muffin.

DH’s Rating: 5 Tongues Up. It must be the processed meat. I don’t let him eat very much of it, so he craves it. But, I really liked it too, and I liked that I could easily make a dozen of these for a brunch or company breakfast. The spice gives the eggs a different aspect that I enjoyed, too.

A Month-of-Eggs: Chinese Tea Eggs

Chinese Tea Eggs

Think of this as Easter Eggs for grown-ups! No, not really. Tea eggs are ubiquitous in China. Grandmothers save their “broth” to make a new batch the next week. Street vendors sell them by the thousands. It’s just that most of us don’t know about them. So I make stupid jokes about their appearance. I apologize to my Asian friends and offer this recipe for the Chinese New Year celebrated this month.

This is not a make-and-serve recipe like most of my others. This one requires a couple of days. The good news is most of the 2 days is with the eggs steeping in the tea “broth” in the refrigerator.

And a confession: the artistic picture of tea eggs at the beginning of this post is one I purchased at a photo site. Mine are at the right. Sigh. Did I not crack them enough? Not enough tea? Did I not steep them long enough? Were the eggs too fresh? Not fresh enough? I’d do more research, but given DH’s rating, I will try them again for him. 

There are dozens of tea egg recipes out there, but I took the basic idea and then kept sipping the broth until it was spicy enough for me. Make your own adjustments. Most of the recipes use star anise, cinnamon sticks, and peppercorns. So you could try that instead of the pre-packaged Chinese Five-Spice powder.

Chinese Tea Eggs

2 cups water

2 black tea bags (or two tablespoons loose black tea.
4 eggs, hard cooked and cracked
½ cup soy sauce
½  teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon Chinese Five-Spice powder

2 teaspoons orange peel zest

Cracked Tea Eggs

Hard cook up to four eggs. Crack the egg shells, but don’t peel them. The more cracks the better.

Bring to a boil the water, tea, soy sauce, sugar, spices, and zest.

Remove from heat and add eggs. Turn to coat thoroughly for a minute or so.

Put in the refrigerator for up to two days. Occasionally turn the eggs over so all sides are equally marinated.

Remove from broth and peel to eat.

DH’s Rating: 4 1/2 Tongues Up! This rating shocked me! You'd think you'd know someone better after all these decades. He is abstemious with his tongue ratings, but he liked the light spiciness of the eggs. They were different. I guess I have had an influence on him!

The Quick Cook Saves You Time and Money with Seasoning Blends

Alli and Gina, personal chefs in my culinary mystery, Mission Impastable, don’t have space to cart around a lot of little spice jars to create their culinary magic at a client’s home. They make their own combos because it is quicker to measure out two tablespoons of Italian Seasoning than to measure out teaspoons of basil, oregano, parsley, rosemary, thyme, and garlic powder. You can see that, I’m sure.

Last week I gave some recipes so you could use up some of those spices lurking in the dark of your pantry by combining them into spice blends. That not only saves space by getting rid of some of those little jars, but it saves money since you don’t buy spice blends when the ingredients are already in your cupboard. And, as mentioned above, it’s quicker to use the blends than to measure individual spices.

I have a couple of more recipes to share, and then to ways to the ones from last week and this week. Again, I urge you to make your own blends and not pay those exorbitant prices in the store. Yours will be fresher and better because the blends have been sitting on those store shelves for a while.

Seasoned Salt (makes about 13 tablespoons)

When you see how easy this recipe is, you’ll wonder why you ever bought the Lawry’s Seasoned Salt for a bazillion dollars.

8 tablespoons salt

8 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon turmeric

2 teaspoons paprika

1 teaspoon cornstarch

Mix thoroughly and store in an airtight jar.

Italian Seasoning (makes about 12 tablespoons)

I like basil more than oregano. Many of the blends have equal amounts of those two herbs, but my blend is heavier on basil. Switch it out for your preference.

5 tablespoons basil

1 tablespoons oregano

3 tablespoons parsley

2 tablespoons rosemary

2 teaspoons thyme

1 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix thoroughly and store in an airtight jar.

QC Tip #3

Use seasoning blends in new ways.

You may now have six blends, if you made last week’s and this week’s recipes: Poultry, Taco, Chinese Five-Spice, and Pumpkin Pie along with today’s Seasoned Salt and Italian.

Don’t be afraid to play with them. Smell the aroma of each. Imagine the foods it could pair with. Mix a small amount of yogurt with a bit of the spice. Taste it. Hold that flavor in your memory. Imagine it spread on or cooked in something else.

Here are some ideas to get you started using the seasoning mixes you made. Think of new ways! I could go on forever!

Poultry	Any poultry-based soup Bean soup As a rub spread on chicken or pork before grilling Steamed or grilled veggies/potato wedges
Taco	Meatloaf/meatballs Slow cooker beef roast Spaghetti sauce Soups/Chili Mix with yogurt for baked potato topping Add to Mac and Cheese Beef, poultry, pork before grilling or roasting
Chinese Five-Spice	Stir fry dishes Toss rice or noodles with spice and olive oil Mix with vanilla Greek yogurt for a veggie dip Beef, poultry, pork, fish before grilling or roasting Mixed with yogurt for baked potato topping Broth-based soups Steamed or grilled veggies/potato wedges
Pumpkin Pie	Homemade ice cream ingredient Mix with honey Greek yogurt to make a dip for fruits Flavor fried apple slices or applesauce Soups/Chili Meatloaf/meatballs Steamed or grilled veggies/potato wedges Beef, poultry, pork before grilling or roasting
Seasoned Salt	Steamed or grilled veggies/potato wedges Beef, poultry, pork before grilling or roasting Mac and cheese Meatloaf/meatballs Mixed with yogurt for baked potato topping Soups/Chili
Italian	Mixed with yogurt for baked potato topping Mix with yogurt for a veggies dip Steamed or grilled veggies/potato wedges Meatloaf/meatballs Beef, poultry, pork before grilling or roasting Mac and cheese Soups

By the way, have you read Mission Impastable yet? If so, I would really appreciate you posting an honest review at Amazon. If not, think about picking up a copy at Amazon. Lots of recipes AND a mystery!

Month of-Appetizers: Northern-Style Pork Ribs à la Alli

Busy month! Mission Impastable just came out! I am so excited! I hope you like what I do well enough to get a copy of this mystery with recipes! You can get it here: http://amzn.to/1eYJ4AY Don’t you love the cover?

This is the first of my daily posts for you this Month-of-Appetizers. Boy, who knew Super Bowl would be so early this year. You are going to be sorry, because there are some great appetizers coming as the month goes along. Save the links and check back next year, and your Super Bowl party is all planned.

I associate rib and wings with Super Bowl parties, so today is ribs and tomorrow is wings. Go buy your wings today so you can make another great recipe tomorrow before the gang arrives.

But, I digress. Ribs are on the menu today. And the ribs dripping in sauce are so last decade. Plus, who can afford to have the carpets cleaned again after serving them? So today, we are doing Northern-style pork ribs, a two-step cooking process. These ribs rely on a dry rub for flavor after frying.

I gotta admit to Googling P.F. Chang’s ribs for some copycat recipes to combine and come up with this version. LOVE me some Northern-style Ribs from P.F. Chang’s!

Ingredients:

2 quarts of water
6 cloves of fresh garlic, sliced
2 whole onions, sliced
4 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon of black peppercorns
2 teaspoons of salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
5 dried star anise seeds
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
rack of baby ribs, cut into separate ribs

¼ cup Chinese Five-Spice powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon brown sugar

Oil for frying

Stage One:

Fill a large pot with water, garlic, onions, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, peppercorns, sugar, cinnamon, star anise, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Bring to a boil and lower heat to simmer.

Add individual ribs and simmer about 30-40 minutes until the meat on the ends starts to pull away from the bone. DO NOT OVERCOOK.

While ribs are simmering, mix the Five-spice powder with salt and brown sugar. Place on a small flat plate you can use to roll ribs on.

Stage Two:

Take the ribs from the pot and allow to drain on a rack before putting into the hot oil (to keep spattering to a minimum). Strain and save the stock in the refrigerator for a meal later in the week.

Deep fry until crispy brown. Remove from oil and drain on a rack.

After oil has dripped off and ribs are somewhat cool so you can handle them, roll in the spice mixture. Arrange on a plate and serve immediately.

Here’s a fun vid to watch if you like cooking videos on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzSvhEykxeo

On another day:

*marinate chicken or fish in the broth for a few hours, then broil or grill

*add rice or quinoa and leftover meat, if you’d like, to the stock. Heat for a tasty soup.

*Freeze the stock in an ice cube tray and use when you want to add flavor to side-dish noodles or rice

No Chinese 5-Spice Powder? Make your own!

Faux Chinese Five-Spice Blend (about 1/4 cup)

2 whole star anise
2 teaspoons peppercorns
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 cinnamon stick, broken into several pieces

In a dry pan over medium heat, toast the anise, peppercorns, cloves, and fennel. Stir gently and turn spices over to prevent burning. Remove from heat when you smell their fragrance. Cool on a plate.

Add the seeds and cinnamon stick pieces to a spice grinder. ( You can use a clean coffee grinder if you have no spice grinder.)

Grind for twenty seconds until a fine powder is formed. If large pieces remain, remove as much of the powder as you can and grind the remaining pieces in 5 - 10 seconds increments until no large pieces remain. Store in a sealed jar away from light.

DH’s Rating: 4 Tongues Up. He really prefers the tomato-based sweeter sauce on his ribs. But he did say these were quite flavorful and not as messy. He is a neatnik, so it surprises me that he likes the gloopy ones better.