Lu Dan — which literally translates to “braised egg” in Taiwanese — is a dish of savory boiled and marinated eggs with perfectly jammy yolks. To make this dish, the eggs are simmered for exactly seven and a half minutes, then shocked in an ice bath to halt cooking before they are added to a sauce with a unique ingredient list.

The marinade for Lu Dan uses soy sauce, which is typically only used in marinades or seasonings for meat and tofu, rather than egg dishes. The soy adds umami that gives the eggs a unique salty-sweetness when combined with spices like cinnamon, star anise, cloves, bay leaves, orange peel, chilis, and Szechuan peppercorn.

This dish has such widespread appeal that many other Asian countries have their own version of Lu Dan. In Japan, soy sauce eggs or shoyu tamago are a popular snack, and in Korea, cooks steep hard-boiled eggs with dried anchovies, garlic, onion, scallions, and sesame oil; the Chinese even use tea in their marinade for "tea eggs."