Welcome back for another installment of cooking for the Pink and Yellow Season

So, this week, I tried a couple of different things, not all lemony and sugary. I was going to attempt more, but I was also making dessert for Easter dinner at a friend's house so I ran out of time. But there's always next week.

 

First up were these Tea Marbled Eggs or Marbled Tea Eggs, which I think is appropriate for the Passover/Easter season. But first a little story.

Back when I was in college *mumble* years ago, I spent a summer in Shanghai, China and fell in love with the culture, but mostly the food. When I came home one of my aunts gave me a set of Sunset cookbooks, one covering a selection of dishes from Asia in general and the other focusing on Chinese fare. I remember going to a friend's house for lunch when I was in Shanghai and being overwhelmed at the food. Now, you may scoff that Sunset cookbooks may not have the genuine article as far as recipes are concerned, but I've used them for years and they help me get my fix when I need it.

Among my favorite recipes is this one for Marbled Tea Eggs that's in the 1979 edition of the Sunset Chinese cookbook. It's a savory and distinctive flavor. Not everyone likes it (as I have learned), but I love them. I like them best either alone or with olives and pickles, but I've also chopped them up into salads.

Usually these eggs are cut into quarters and served as part of a cold appetizer selection (like serving them with pickled things and olives as mentioned above). But they are so pretty-with the marbling of fine dark lines-that if you serve them for hors d’oeuvres you may want to present the whole shelled eggs nestled in shredded lettuce and slice them to order, or just the whole eggs period. They make a fine addition to picnic fare, too.

Ingredients:
8 eggs (I usually just do a dozen and expand the recipe accordingly)
3 black tea bags or 3 tsp. loose black tea (I add an extra tea bag for a dozen)
2 Tb. Soy sauce (about 2 1/2 Tb. for a dozen)
1 Tb. Salt (about 1 1/2 Tb. for a dozen)
1 whole star anise or 1 tsp. anise seeds and a 2 inch stick of cinnamon
(maybe toss in an extra one for a dozen)

Place eggs in a pan and cover with cold water. Bring water to simmering and cook for 20 min. Drain; rinse eggs with cold water until cool enough to handle. Gently crack shells of eggs with back of spoon (but don’t take shells off, just crack them) until there is a find network of cracks.

Return eggs to pan. Add 4 cups of water (or whatever you need to cover the eggs), the tea, soy sauce, salt and star anise. Heat to simmering and cook, on low heat, for 1 hour. Cool and chill eggs in the liquid for at least 8 hours or up to 2 days. Shell eggs before serving.



Next up, after whipping together more of last week's lemon bars (turned out well) and the week before that's lemon fudge (not so well), I decided to try these things I saw online called Lemon Brownies. Yes, you saw that correctly, Lemon Brownies. No, they don't have chocolate in them; they are a form of lemon bar, but the way one would make a lemon bar if one were making brownies. Instead of cocoa in the recipe, you have lemon juice and lemon zest.

The "Brownie" Batter:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
 
Tart Lemon Glaze:
1 rounded cup powdered sugar
4 tablespoon lemon juice
8 teaspoons lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease/Spray an 8-by-8-inch baking dish with butter/cooking spray and set aside.

Zest and juice two small/large lemons; set aside. {whatever you have}
In the bowl of an electric mixture fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the flour, sugar, salt, and softened butter until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, lemon zest, and lemon juice until combined. Pour into the flour mixture and beat at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Pour into baking dish and bake for 23-25 minutes, or until just starting to turn golden around the edges and a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out clean.

Now, by the time I got to this part, I was all out of white sugar and I only had a tiny bit of powdered sugar (I didn't plan well) and was down to brown sugar, so my lemon brownies have a darker hue than the Becky Charms' brownies do.

Batter before it went into the oven.

Allow the brownies to cool completely before glazing. Do not overbake, or the bars will be dry.

Becky Charms' lemon brownies.

My lemon brownies.

When brownies are cooled completely, make the glaze...sift the powdered sugar, add lemon zest and juice, and whisk together all three ingredients.

Spread 1/2 the glaze over the brownies with a rubber spatula. Let glaze set.

My brownies and glaze.

Becky Charms brownies and glaze.

 Spread the remaining glaze over the bars, and let it set again. This glaze does not harden like most. Cut into bars, and serve!

For the record, I haven't tried these yet. I covered them and put them in the fridge for another time, or to take to work on Monday. But, they're supposed to look like this.

Becky Charms finished lemon brownies.

I will report back and let you know how these turned out for me.

Next weekend, I'm going to try the Lemon Yogurt Pound Cake that I didn't have time to tackle this weekend.