Helpful Tips and Ideas for Cooking with Tea

Never thought of cooking with tea? Well, think again! Tea can be a great addition to creative main dishes, desserts, and sauces. It adds great taste and provides many health benefits! The easiest way to begin cooking with tea is by adding it to freshly made marinades and sauces for meat, fish, or poultry.

Helpful Tips and Ideas When Cooking with Tea:

• Perk up gravies, soups and stews by adding some brewed black tea. Add a tablespoon to gravy and one-half to one cup to a pot of stew or chili. Recommended teas are a strong black tea such as Keemun, Assam or Yunnan.
• Substitute brewed green or oolong tea for water when poaching chicken or shrimp.
• Use dry tea leaves as a salad topping for added flavor and crunch or try brewed green tea in your favorite salad dressing.
• Combine dry tea leaves with spices and herbs and ground into a powder to create tasty rubs for meats, poultry, and fish, adding a delicious twist! Use hearty black teas like the Ceylon Kandy, Lapsang Souchong, or Assam which are great for creating rubs.
• Add flavor to your rice dishes with tea. Cook rice in brewed tea, instead of water. Or, crush loose tea and mix with cooked rice. Recommended teas to use with rice dishes are Genmaicha, Sencha or Jasmine.
• When making hard boiled eggs, infuse the boiling water with tea leaves to give eggs a marbled appearance on the whites when hard boiled. The tea seeps through the slights cracks in the shell at the end of cooking which creates this marbled appearance. Green or black teas work great.
• Brewed tea can be used as a braising liquid, or as a seasoning for marinades. As the base for a sauce, fruit juices gain depth of flavor with the addition of tea.

There are several techniques for brewing tea for cooking that will ensure the tea will not be too bitter. 

• Pour pure spring water on the leaves and allow them to brew at room temperature up to 20 to 30 minutes.
• Use 1 teaspoon of tea per 8 ounces of water and steep about 3-5 minutes in water that is under a boil (180-185°).
• Cold brewing is another method of preparation. Use 2 teaspoons of tea per 8 ounces of cold water. Steep for 2 hours.

Healthy Recipe:  Green Beans with Garlic and Tea

Ingredients:
1 lbs. fresh green beans, trimmed
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp. canola oil
2 tbs. Keemun tea leaves, brewed in two cups of spring water  Instructions:
Steam green beans in water. While beans are steaming, sauté minced garlic in one tsp. of canola oil until opaque. Add brewed tea and simmer with garlic for a few minutes. Remove beans from steamer and put in a large bowl. Pour tea marinade over drained beans. Garnish with toasted almond slices, as desired. Serve immediately.
Recipe Credit: sallys-place.com

References: www.thefragrantleaf.com, www.teamuse.com

Like this post? Share it!