Tea leaves can become part of a huge number of dishes: from ice cream to pasta and fragrant baking. We tell you how else you can use tea in cooking, and share the recipe for crumbly tea biscuits.
Tea is, undoubtedly, one of the most effective ways to keep warm in the winter or quench your thirst during the hot season, but the basis of your favorite drink can be applied much more creatively.
Add tea to dairy products
Try to brew tea on milk, slowly warming up in a saucepan. After full cooling, strain the milk and use to make ice cream, puddings, oatmeal and cream sauces. Who would have thought that green tea is good in beshamel, and herbal and fruit teas are suitable for creme brulee and ice cream.
Use in dry marinades
To prepare homemade seasonings for meat or poultry, mash the mortar with a few tea leaves and add the resulting powder to the fragrant mixture. For example, traditional Chinese Lapsang with a light smoked flavor is suitable for rubbing pork and beef steaks.
Mix with dough
Bright-green powder of matte tea has long been used in many desserts and pastries. A slightly more original way of using it will be adding to the dough for pasta. Ready tea noodles can only be found on the shelves of Japanese supermarkets, but you can make homemade pasta with a light herbal flavor with your own hands.
Add to butter
We have already talked about some interesting recipes of fragrant butter, and with the help of the tea leaves, we can get another interesting option. Pound a little tea with bergamot, mix with soft butter and cool until hardening, and then spread on hot pastries.
Use in baking
One of the most popular recipes with tea leaves is a cookie recipe. Tea perfectly combines with a sugar sand dough, giving it its flavor, but without affecting the texture. Definitely, it’s tea-biscuits that should start with tea outside of drinks.
Ingredients
– For cookies:
- 360 g of flour;
- ½ teaspoon of soda;
- a pinch of salt;
- 240 g of sugar;
- 2 eggs;
- 1 teaspoon of vinegar;
- 115 g of butter;
- 3 tablespoons of tea leaves.
– For sprinkling:
- 2 tablespoons of sugar;
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon.
Start by combining the dry ingredients by mixing the flour with the soda and a little salt.
Separately, prepare a mixture of eggs and oil, first beat the soft butter into the cream with sugar, and then, without stopping the mixer, beat the egg in the cream, one at a time. Last to the oil mixture add vinegar.
Combine the dry mixture with butter, not too long working the dough with a shovel.
Prepare tea leaves. Best is black tea with a pronounced taste and aroma. Grind the leaves with a blender or rub in a mortar almost to a powdery state, so that you do not have to chew the leaves.
Divide the dough into 8 portions, roll each into a ball and roll in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon (the same we prepared for our 15-minute donuts). Sugar is not necessary, but it gives the liver more sweetness and provides a light crisp shell.
Distribute portions of the dough onto the parchment covered with a baking sheet, leaving enough distance between them, as they will spread out to the sides under the influence of temperature. Bake at 190 degrees for 17-20 minutes or until the surface is covered with a slight blush, and the edges do not become firm.
It is best to serve this cookie with a warm one.