Marvellous, Magnificent, Mystical, Magical ehm …Marble Eggs

So flicking through some old and retro cook books at work and came across this bad boy recipe that got me very, very eggcited (excuse the poor pun. Read on) the person that conjured up this creation should get some kind of egg Nobel award. I would love to meet them and get behind their thought process, pick their brains so to speak. Ingenious and I am still a slightly puzzled as to why this technique is not more widely used, never made it mainstream or main stage even. It is visually stunning. I love it.

So I must admit I had my reservations of posting this on underpressure firstly and foremost because of the stunning visuals of the end product and secondly because of the scope, the elaboration the recipe is crying out for because as you will see the finished product has bang factor written all over its soft exterior although unfortunately, for me and my culinary colleagues it lacks in flavour and verges on the borders of bland. The due elaboration I, and others are thinking of and the greedy reservations subsided. Food is to be loved, to be shared and as long as I have like-minded foodies reading my blog, inevitably, I will share…

So this is Chinese in origin and that is about as far as my knowledge goes on his technique. I am guessing the reason the technique has not been incorporated into top end cooking stems from the blandness o the finished product. What would Heston do I wonder?

Ingredients

6 eggs

3/4 cup soy sauce

2 star anise

2 tea bags

1 cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorn

2 strips dehydrated tangerine or mandarin orange peel

How to

Bang your eggs into a pot of water and bring to the boil… lower the heat and let simmer for a further three minutes. Lift your eggs (leave your pot to one side, do not discard water) refresh in ice water to prevent cooking. Now using the back of s spoon gently tap the egg surface. Gently being the operative word. Do not break the shell surface. Think ballerina thoughts, light and delicate. The more cracks incorporated the funkier the design… Bang!

Now whack in all your ingredients to the pot. Add the eggs. Return to a boil then reduce heat to a gentle simmer for around thirty minutes. Then kill the heat altogether. Put a lid on the put and let steep overnight. Strain and peel to the next morn to marvel at your marvel delights. Stunning.

Hmmmm... Heston

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..And then there is the food dye. Bang factor through the roof. So, so visually stunning, but that does not shift attention from the fact they taste like a flip flop. So... it has as it happens, or happened, occurred that I have a few ideas on how to enhance the flavour of the finished product but my trail of thought inevitably leads back to what would the ginger genius himself would do posed with such a conundrum? Oh …but for an hour of his time! So I severely doubt that Heston shall be knocking on my front door with a half dozen egg under one arm and a half dozen brew under the other anytime soon so I am open to any suggestions or thoughts you guys have on marbled eggs. Help me enhance this bad boy. Bang…