A Simple Meal

Today, we had my dentist friend, Hoon over for lunch. My mother prepared for her the chicken rice that she has been craving for since she last had it here at our place. We first tasted this chicken rice dish, an appetiser at Hyatt Hotel years ago at its Western restaurant, which has since closed its doors to make way for Mezza9. My mother has since refined the dish and it is now one of her signature dishes at our lunch/ dinner parties.


My mother also made her famous Tea Leaves Eggs. (She has promised to make them for her friends.) Since 8am in the morning, she started cooking the 120 eggs (hard-boiled and shells cracked) in a broth made from quality tea leaves (NOT tea bags!), quality Japanese dried mushrooms, quality black soya sauce, rock sugar, star anise and sze chuan pepper. The longer the eggs are cooked in the broth, the more fragrant they become. Minimum 10 hours for the egg yolks to be infused with the fragrance of the tea leaves.



Hmmm... this reminds me of "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." Macbeth (Act IV, Scene I). Hahaha. Looks like, right? Hahaha. My mother will kill me if she knows that I said that of her broth in which the tea leaves eggs are in. LOL. Shhh... don't tell her :P