sweetened tea eggs

This is my deviated version of the traditional salty tea eggs. I wanted to experiment making it a sweet dessert since I figured tea can go very well with palm sugar and would make a nice blend of flavor to the eggs.
I used black tea leaves, but you can use any type of tea. In fact, next time I probably would use either red tea or green tea since I wanted a golden or slightly red color. The palm sugar naturally adds some tint to the end result already, especially after simmering it for some time. This time around the color of my eggs is a bit too dark, IMO.

Ingredients:
+ 1 tsp tea, keet in a pouch (or +/- to your taste -if you want more tea flavor)
Alternatively, you can use the ready-made tea bags
+ 6-10 eggs
+ 3 whole bar of palm sugar (or +/- to your taste)
+ a dab of salt
+ (Optional) 1 star anise

Here's the palm sugar bar I'm refering to


Instructions:
+ Boil the eggs in a separate pot. Once done, drain, crack (but not remove) the shells of the eggs. This will give your eggs the effect of dragon-eye once finish.
+ In another pot, boil 4 cups of water.
+ Add to dissolve the palm sugar. Add the tea. Also add the star anise if you want. This should now give you a slightly browned base.
+ Add a dab of salt to deepen the sweetness.
+ Test taste your broth, add more sugar/tea, etc. if needed, to your taste. Be free and creative, add more tea if you want deeper flavor, add sugar if you want it sweet - it is YOUR dessert :-)
+ Add the eggs and simmer for at least 1/2 hr. Once the broth reduce, you can add more water and other ingredients - goal is to maintain the water level such that it about to cover all your eggs, we don't want the broth to become syrup-like.

Serving hot, this makes a healthy and nutritious dessert.

My sweet tea-egg dessert (um...i forgot to crack the egg shell so no dragon eye effect)

Here's the dragon eye I'm talking about

Braised Pork with Eggs (Thit Heo Kho Voi Trung)

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I was making Braised Pork w/ Eggs (Thit Heo Kho Voi Trung) for dinner last week, thanks to Wandering Chopsticks' recipe. I didn't have CocoRico, nor any Seven-Up, so I used some beer instead! LOL!

My Mom and sister usually use the pork belly to make this, but I don't want too much fat so I used pork butt instead, and follow the above recipe, with little bit of modifications on ingredient measurements to fit our own taste.

+ 2 lbs pork butt, cut into 2-inch cubes
+ 8 hard boiled eggs, peeled
+ 1 cup of beer (I wanted to follow WanderingChopsticks' CocoRico recommendation, or Seven-Up, but didn't have either one around my kitchen, the only thing available in stock is beer!)
+ 4 cloves of garlic, minced
+ 3 tbsp soy sauce (instead of fish sauce)
+ 1-2 tsp salt or to taste
+ 1/3 bar of palm sugar, crushed a little for easy dissolve (or 1-2 tsp sugar to taste)
+ 1 tsp caramel (WanderingChopsticks makes her own caramel)
+ 2 cups water (or more)

Heat 1 tbsp oil on medium heat, add minced garlic. Then add the pork cubes, stir around a little so the meat can brown a little bit. Add caramel, and stir around alittle bit more.

Add beer (better if it's CocoRico coconut juice, or Seven-Up).
Add soysauce and palm sugar.
Add 2 cup water. Let it all simmer on low heat for 15 minutes
Add in the eggs (I like the eggs to absorb more taste, so I add them in at the beginning - if you don't want your eggs hard cooked you can add them in later).

Watch your sauce amount, it should level around where it can cover the meat and eggs. Add more water, add salt+soysauce+sugar to taste, and let simmer more as needed. Stir the meat and eggs around occasionally so they can be evenly marinated in the sauce.

This is excellent eaten with hot white rice.