By Bill Daley | Chicago Tribune
Tea is for drinking to be sure, but what about tea for eating? Many of us know the marbleized tea eggs and tea-smoked duck of Chinese kitchens or the green tea ice cream found in many Asian restaurants, but how often have we encountered oolong-brined turkey, salmon lacquered in green tea or "smoky" black lentils cooked in lapsang souchong tea?
These are just some of the 150 recipes "steeped in tradition from around the world" to be found in a new book, "Culinary Tea," (Running Press, $22.95). The authors are Cynthia Gold, tea sommelier at The Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers, one of the first chefs to explore the uses of "culinary" tea, and Lise Stern, a writer and author based in Cambridge, Mass.
"My goal is ... to open people's eyes to the exploration of an ingredient that belongs in all our kitchens," Gold said.
Gold's mission of "showing what tea can do" began about 14 years ago when she opened a new restaurant. She insisted on developing a strong tea program and went out of her way to find and purchase the best teas.
"Once I had the teas in-house, I started to be tempted to play with them, simply because they were there," she recalled. As she experimented, Gold learned tea was more than a beautiful beverage to be savored but a "flexible botanical" worthy of respect.
"The more I played, the more I realized how underutilized and underappreciated tea was, and what an asset it could be in the kitchen," she said.
Tea styles range from the elegant freshness of barely processed white tea to the complex layering of flavor found in partially oxidized oolong tea to the full-throttle taste of black teas like that lapsang souchong. There's the earthy, aged pu-erh tea, (POOH-air) blended teas, scented and flavored teas. All can find a spot in the kitchen and on the table.
"Tea can do many things for you," Gold added. "The tannins in tea can be used to balance sweetness or richness in other ingredients. Tea can add depth of flavor to a dish, complexity or brightness. It can be used to tease flavors out, to bridge between different disparate ingredients or highlight certain aspects of a dish."
Cooking with tea goes beyond using the hot water-infused beverage. As Gold points out, tea can be steeped in cold water, oils, dairy products, vinegars, juices and even alcohol. She's working on a book of tea-based cocktails.
"You can even liquefy a solid ingredient, for instance butter. Infuse the tea leaves, then strain and solidify it again and continue with your recipe," she said.
Powdered teas, of which the green matcha (MAH-tchah) is most famous for its role in the Japanese tea ceremony, can be stirred into recipes. Dried tea leaves can be used in rubs or marinades or burned to season a food in savory smoke.
If the dried leaves are to be eaten, it's often best to grind or chop them to create the desired mouth feel, Gold added. What matters most is using quality tea, she said, purchased in small quantities so it won't go stale. Keep it away from light, heat, air or any moisture.
"My hope is there will eventually be no such thing as 'tea cuisine.' It will be such a natural part of our repertoire, no one will think of it as anything odd," Gold said.
Green tea-lacquered salmon with sweet potatoes and spinach
Prep: 30 minutes
Marinate: 2 hours
Cook: 25 minutes
Makes: 4 Servings
Note: This recipe in "Culinary Tea" was created by Christoph Leu, the corporate chef of Starwood Hotels, and Julia Tolstunova, also with Starwood.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup steaming water (about 175 degrees)
4 teaspoons loose-leaf green tea leaves, such as Dragonwell or sencha
4 teaspoons honey
4 fillets salmon, 6 ounces each, skin on
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 sweet potatoes, peeled, diced
8 cups baby spinach
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 shallot, minced
4 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, halved
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1. Pour the steaming water over the tea leaves in a small bowl; add honey. Steep, covered, for 21/2 minutes, strain, discard the leaves. Place salmon in a nonreactive pan. Brush with honey tea; pour any remaining tea around the fish. Marinate in the refrigerator, covered, 1 hour or up to 2 days.
2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sweet potatoes; cook, stirring, until golden, 6-10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl; cover to keep warm. Add the spinach and garlic to the skillet. Cook, stirring, until the spinach is just wilted, less than 1 minute. Transfer to a shallow serving bowl; cover to keep warm.
3. Meanwhile, heat broiler. Line a broiler pan with foil; spray with vegetable oil cooking spray. Place the salmon in the pan skin side-down; season with 1/4 teaspoon of the salt. Broil just until golden, about 2 minutes. Lower the heat to 350 degrees; bake salmon until just cooked through, 5-10 minutes.
4. Pour remaining 1 tablespoon of the oil into the skillet. Heat over medium heat; add shallots and shiitakes. Cook, stirring, until the shallots are translucent and the mushrooms have begun to release some of their juices, 3-4 minutes. Add wine and lemon juice, stirring to scrape up browned bits. Heat over medium-high heat until reduced by half, about 3 minutes; add the chicken stock. Reduce by half, 3 minutes. Add thyme, remaining 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and pepper to taste. Pour mushroom and shallot mixture over spinach; top with salmon. Serve with sweet potatoes.
Nutrition information
Per serving: 562 calories, 42 percent of calories from fat, 26 g fat, 4 g saturated fat, 107 mg cholesterol, 38 g carbohydrates, 44 g protein, 563 mg sodium, 6 g fiber.
Giving up the bag
Henrietta Lovell ends her email messages with this stirring phrase: "De-bagging England."
The founder and managing director of the Rare Tea Co. in London is known to her friends simply as the "tea lady." Lovell does not like commercial tea bags at all.
"My mission is to de-bag tea drinkers," she said. "For one thing, the chemicals used to make the bags white is the same used to dry-clean clothes. Low-grade leaves and dust are jammed in bags. The good stuff comes loose because it needs room to unfurl and expand as it infuses."
Now, the Rare Tea Co. does sell tea "bags" for those times when loose tea isn't convenient. But the tea bags are large so the tea leaves can unfurl and are made from chlorine-free, unbleached biodegradable paper. The bags arrive empty; you fill them with your favorite loose-leaf tea.
Lovell gets her teas from small, independent tea farmers who make "orthodox" teas, meaning teas produced by a traditional small-batch process rather than "large-scale industrial processing that fills tea bags."
She advises newcomers to tea to buy the best teas they can afford because quality matters.
"High leaf-to-water ratio and short infusion times -- lots of leaf for little time -- is far better than a little tea for a long time," Lovell said. "In a long infusion, the bitter tannins will leach out and mask the softer, subtler flavors. This might sound expensive, but a good leaf tea can make many infusions if you keep them short. For the same amount of tea, you can make three delicious short infusions or one long bitter one."
"We're moving away from the bland, flat tea bag and rediscovering the myriad complexities of the tea we know and love," she added. "It doesn't need fruit flavors. It doesn't need sugar or milk. It's calorie free, packed with antioxidants and utterly delicious."
While the tea plant has many varieties, the dramatic differences in tea come mainly from its processing, according to Tobin Ropes, co-owner of the Tacoma, Wash., Mad Hat Tea Co.
It can be as simple and light as white, which is processed in a manner of hours by simple dehydration. Or it can be as complex as Pu-erh, an oddity of a tea that is sold in compressed forms with only a few Chinese practitioners knowing the secret process that involves composting and yeast.
There's one thing that all tea purveyors seem to agree on: The best tea is whole leaf.
Types of teas
Green
Characteristics: Grassy, assertive
Steeping temperature: 170-175 for Japanese, 180-195 for Chinese
Variety to try: Dragonwell (Chinese) and sencha (Japanese)
Black
Characteristics: Strong, but less nuanced in flavor
Steeping temperature: 195-210
Varieties to try: Darjeeling -- the Champagne of tea; Asam -- strong; Ceylon -- vibrant; Chinese -- softer, forgiving, not brisk; and Kenyan -- the newcomer on the tea scene
White
Characteristics: Soft, gentle, light, earthy
Steeping temperature: 180-185
Variety to try: Pai Mu Dan
Pu-erh
Characteristics: Extremely strong
Steeping temperature: Boil
Oolong
Characteristics: Floral to dried grain
Steeping temperature: 190
Variety to try: Ti Kwan Yin (green) and Formosa (amber)
Sources: Tobin Ropes, Felix D'Allesandro
Tea-marbled eggs
Prep: 5 minutes
Cook: 10 minutes
Makes: 12 eggs
Cracking the shells of hard-cooked eggs and steeping them in tea makes for a lovely marbleized look. Adapted from Cynthia Gold and Lise Stern's "Culinary Tea."
12 eggs
5 cups water
3/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons loose-leaf lapsang souchong tea leaves
4 whole star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1. Put the eggs in a saucepan large enough to hold them in a single layer. Cover with cold water; heat to a rolling boil over high heat, partially covered. As soon as the water boils, remove from heat. Let stand, covered, 10 minutes. Transfer the eggs with a slotted spoon to a bowl of ice water. Cool until you can handle the eggs. Gently crack the shells all over with the back of a spoon. Do not peel. Do not tap too hard or tea liquid will seep into the shell instead of staining the crack.
2. Empty hot water from saucepan. Refill with the 5 cups water, soy sauce and brown sugar. Heat to a boil over high heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved; add the tea, anise and cinnamon. Reduce the heat, add the eggs. If the eggs are not covered by liquid, add additional water until they are just covered. Simmer, covered, 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat; let eggs stand in the liquid, uncovered, until cool. Chill in the liquid, 2 hours to 2 days. When ready to serve, remove the eggs from the liquid; peel. Serve eggs as they are, halved, or devil them.
Nutrition information: Per serving: 77 calories, 64 percent of calories from fat, 5 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 212 mg cholesterol, 0 g carbohydrates, 6 g protein, 62 mg sodium, 0 g fiber
Smoky black lentils
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 35 minutes
Rest: 10 minutes
Makes: 8 servings
This recipe from Cynthia Gold's and Lise Stern's "Culinary Tea" calls for smoky lapsang souchong tea.
4 cups boiling water
41/2 teaspoons loose-leaf lapsang souchong tea leaves
2 cups black lentils, picked over, rinsed
1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, preferably fire roasted
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro or parsley, plus sprigs for garnish
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pour boiling water over tea leaves in a medium bowl. Steep, covered, 4 minutes; strain into a large saucepan, discarding tea leaves. Add the lentils and tomatoes; heat to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat; simmer, uncovered, until most of the liquid is absorbed and the lentils are firm but tender, 30-40 minutes. Let rest, covered, until liquid is absorbed, about 10 minutes. Stir in the cilantro, pepper and salt. Garnish with cilantro sprigs. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Nutrition information: Per serving: 184 calories, 3 percent of calories from fat, 0.5 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 33 g carbohydrates, 13 g protein, 297 mg sodium, 12 g fiber
Matcha tea leaf cookies
Prep: 30 minutes
Chill: 20 minutes
Cook: 15 minutes per batch
Makes: About 3 dozen cookies
Matcha, or finely powdered green tea leaves, imparts its flavor to these leaf-shaped cookies from "Culinary Tea," by Cynthia Gold and Lise Stern.
2 sticks (8 ounces each) unsalted butter, chilled
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon orange brandy, such as Grand Marnier
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons matcha green tea powder
1/2 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1. Cream together butter and sugar until smooth using a mixer on medium speed. Blend in the liqueur; add the flour, matcha, 5-spice powder and salt. Mix until the dough just comes together.
2. Flatten dough into a disk; place between two sheets of parchment or waxed paper. Roll out to 1/8-inch thick; chill in the refrigerator on a baking sheet until firm enough to lift it cleanly without stretching, at least 20 minutes.
3. Heat oven to 300 degrees. With a knife, cut dough into leaf shapes about 1 by 2 inches, or use a leaf-shaped cookie cutter. Transfer to baking sheets lined with parchment paper, or sprayed with cooking spray, leaving 1/2 inch between them. Very lightly score a center vein into each tea leaf, if desired. Work quickly; if the dough becomes too soft, return to the refrigerator to chill.
4. Bake until the cookies take on a dry powdery look and are firm, about 15 minutes per batch. Cool on the baking sheets, 2 minutes; transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week or freeze.
Nutrition information: Per serving: 81 calories, 57 percent of calories from fat, 5 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 13 mg cholesterol, 8 g carbohydrates, 1 g protein, 17 mg sodium, 0 g fiber
