1001 Ways to Devil Your Eggs
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com
Before we begin with the recipes, I’d like to touch on what is the best way to make hard-boiled eggs. It seems that everyone has their tips and tricks. But I have found that, unless my eggs are old (the membrane lets go of the egg), I end up with hard-to-peel eggs. That is, until I started cooking them in my electric pressure cooker!
Steam under pressure is the golden ticket to trouble-free hard boiled eggs. The pressure of the steam separates the membrane from the shell and egg, and yields perfect eggs that are a pleasure to peel.
I cook a dozen eggs at a time, with two cups of water in my pressure cooker. I set it for 6 minutes on low pressure and voila! perfect hard boiled eggs every time.
If you don’t have a pressure cooker, the second best method that I’ve found is to boil your eggs in a pot of salted water. Then cool your eggs under cold running water and let them sit in a container of water submerged overnight. The porous shell allows water to seep in between the shell and membrane, loosening things up for easier peeling the next day.
Traditional Deviled Eggs
Ingredients:
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Mayonnaise
- Yellow mustard
- Curry powder
- Pickle juice (the brine in a jar of dill pickles)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
1. Hard-boil your eggs, peel them, cool them and cut them in half. Remove the yolk and keep in a bowl.
2. Mix the yolks with a bit of mayo, mustard, a pinch of curry powder and a couple of tablespoons of pickle juice. Season with salt and pepper and mix well.
3. You can now spoon, pipe or scoop the egg yolk mixture back into each egg-white-half. You can garnish with whatever your heart desires; I like chives, paprika or fresh chopped parsley.
Deviled 100 Year Old Duck Eggs
Don’t let the title scare you. While these eggs can be a couple of years old, they are a delicacy in Asia and taste pretty much just like regular eggs. These duck eggs are preserved with salt and lye which turns the whites a tranlucent amber color and turns the yolk green-gray. Like several other foods, preserved duck eggs are cooked chemically by the salt and lye and are preserved for a long time.
These eggs can be found at most Asian grocery stores, or online at amazon.com.
I like to wow brave dinner party guests with this exotic variation of deviled egg.
For this recipe I discard the green yolks and keep the amber “whites”. I like to use regular yellow yolks from chicken eggs to make the filling. The color really stands out!
Ingredients:
- 12 chicken eggs (hard-boiled)
- 12 preserved duck eggs
- Mayo
- Wasabi paste
- Scallions
- Black sesame seeds (for garnish)
Instructions:
1. Hard-boil the chicken eggs as per instructions above. Keep the yolks and discard the whites (or use them for a different recipe)
2. Peel and cut the preserved duck eggs in half. Remove and discard the green yolks with a spoon.
3. Mix the yellow yolks with a bit of mayonnaise and some wasabi paste. Fill the duck eggs with this mixture and garnish with fresh, chopped scallion or black sesame seeds.
Deviled Quail Eggs
These little eggs make an impressive presentation. They are available fresh or canned from my local Asian grocery store, or you can buy them online. Making deviled quail eggs is more time-consuming than regular eggs, but it’s worth it to impress and entertain your guests.
I actually use canned quail eggs, and find that the flavor difference is very minimal when compared to fresh quail eggs. Plus, peeling a few dozen tiny quail eggs can make one lose his patience at times!
Ingredients:
- Quail eggs (fresh or canned)
- Mayonnaise
- Yellow Mustard
- Curry Powder
- Pickle juice
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
1. Hard-boil your eggs, peel them, cool them and cut them in half. Remove the yolk and keep in a bowl.
2. Mix the yolks with a bit of mayo, mustard, a pinch of curry powder and a couple of tablespoons of pickle juice. Season with salt and pepper and mix well.
3. You can now spoon, pipe or scoop the egg yolk mixture back into each egg-white-half. You can garnish with whatever your heart desires; I like chives, paprika or fresh chopped parsley.
Deviled Saffron Eggs
I made these when thinking of how to do inverted eggs - a white yolk with yellow “whites”. Marinating them in a heavy saffron chicken stock did the trick! Once they were hard-boiled and I removed the yolks, I soaked the whites in the liquid over night.
Ingredients:
- Hard boiled eggs
- Boursin cheese or cream cheese
- Saffron (real or fake)
- Chicken stock
Instructions:
1. Hard-boil your eggs, peel them, cool them and cut them in half. Remove the yolk.
2. Soak the egg whites in the saffron stock for at least 4 hours so that the whites become yellow or orange.
3. Remove from the coloring liquid, pat dry with paper towel and fill with boursin cheese or cream cheese.
Purple Beet Deviled Eggs
As above, I wanted these to have a beautiful purple color. So I used the juice from a couple of can of organic sliced beets.
Ingredients:
- Hard-boiled eggs
- 2 cans of beets (the juice from the cans)
- Mayonnaise
- Yellow mustard
- Curry powder
- Pickle juice
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
1. Hard-boil the eggs as per above instructions. Peel them, cut them in half and save the yolks.
2. Put the whites into a container with the beet juice for 4 hours or until they turn deep purple.
3. Mix the yolks, mayo, mustard, curry powder, pickle juice, salt and pepper.
4. Drain the whites, pat dry them and fill them with the yolk mixture.
5. You can garnish with paprika, chives, scallions or parsley. Enjoy!
BBQ Deviled Eggs
Ingredients:
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Bull’s Eye BBQ Sauce
- Hot sauce of choice
- Chives
Instructions:
1. Hard-boil the eggs as per above instructions. Peel them, cut them in half and save the yolks.
2. Mix the yolks with BBQ sauce.
3. Fill the egg whites with the BBQ sauce yolks and sprinkle with hot sauce and chives.
Norwegian Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs
Ingredients:
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Mayonnaise
- Yellow mustard
- Curry powder
- Norwegian smoked salmon
- Pickle juice (the brine in a jar of dill pickles)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
1. Hard-boil your eggs, peel them, cool them and cut them in half. Remove the yolk and keep in a bowl.
2. Mix the yolks with a bit of mayo, mustard, a pinch of curry powder and a couple of tablespoons of pickle juice. Season with salt and pepper and mix well.
3. You can now spoon, pipe or scoop the egg yolk mixture back into each egg-white-half. Then top the yolk with some scrunched-up smoked salmon and garnish with whatever your heart desires; I like chives, paprika or fresh chopped parsley.
Don't forget to visit my Facebook page by clicking the following link:
http://www.tampabaychef.com/tampa.personal.chef
Don't forget to visit my Facebook page by clicking the following link:
http://www.tampabaychef.com/tampa.personal.chef
So many great ideas here for deviled eggs! (And, really, they're always first to do at any party or holiday meal.)
ReplyDelete