cherishables: recipe

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Saturday, May 26, 2012

Devilish Eggs Recipe

I've never been a fan of deviled eggs. I don't care for yolks, so the idea of eating mashed up yolks with salt, pepper, mustard and mayo is not at all appealing to me. I was in my 20s when I finally ate a deviled egg and that's because my BFF's mother made the most delicious deviled eggs. Her secret? Piccalilli!

If you've never made deviled eggs with relish or piccalilli, you don't know what you're missing! I made some for my niece's party, so let's walk through the steps....

The ingredients:

Not pictured: white vinegar (b/c I always forget about it until it's time to add it) and a jar of roasted peppers and onions (b/c I didn't know I was going to use it.)

hard boiled eggs
ground mustard
mayo
prepared mustard
Tabasco (optional -- my family LOVES it!)
fresh thyme
piccalilli (or substitute)
vinegar
salt & pepper

I always have trouble with hard boiled eggs. The eggs are perfect, but the shells stick to the whites making
1. a mess
2. yucky looking eggs
I learned the best trick for fool-proof hard boiled eggs from my mother, who learned it from her father. Let the eggs sit out overnight then, after they're boiled, shake the pot to crack the eggs & THEN fill with cold water. The cold water gets under the shells and helps to separate the membrane from the egg white. They peel like a dream! Since I always have trouble with eggs cracking in the water, I add a pinch of salt and that also works every time. I bring the water to a boil (with the eggs in it) and then turn off the burner, put the lid on and let the eggs sit for 10 minutes. At the risk of repeating myself -- it works every time!

My store didn't have piccalilli (it's hit and miss) so I substituted sweet salad cubes, which were pretty similar. Since I wanted more peppers in mine, I also added some roasted peppers and onions from a jar (we'll call this piccalilli.) Any filling like this will be too big to pipe and will be very wet when added to the egg yolks. We'll remedy that by draining the piccalilli and then chopping it.

Of course you can chop yours by hand, but I always use a the chopper attachment of my stick blender. It's so much faster and makes very uniform pieces.

While the piccalilli is draining, mash the egg yolks and add the dry ingredients.

Rough chop a bit of fresh time and reserve some leaves to top the finished deviled eggs.

My favorite knife -- it's a vegetable knife with a really big blade from Cutco.

The rest of the ingredients are very wet, so I suggest adding one at a time, in order of flavor importance, and leaving the mayo until last. This ensures the filling isn't too runny. First, add a bit of vinegar. You can use any kind you like, I use plain old distilled white vinegar. Next add a glob of prepared mustard (I used Guldens) and then the piccalilli. If you're concerned that you'll have too much, only add half and taste before adding more. I ended up using about 3/4 of the batch I chopped.

Lastly add the mayo. As you can see, I used only a little bit -- just enough to make a smoother filling. Mix and taste. Then you're ready to fill.

Another trick I learned from my mother, I use a disposable bag with a pastry tip fitted into the corner. Clip the corner and...instant pastry bag. I then place the bag, tip-down, into a glass so I can fill it. It makes filling so much easier. Now all that's left is to pipe the filling into the bag.

Sorry for the fuzzy picture. It's hard to pipe and shoot at the same time.

Top each egg with a reserved thyme leaf and you're ready to go.

Picnic ready!

Personally, I don't use a recipe when making deviled eggs. I like to taste as I go and stop when they taste good. With that said, I've taken a stab at a recipe below:

Devilish Eggs

one dozen hard boiled eggs
2 teaspoons dry mustard
generous pinch of salt
pinch of white pepper
5 drops of Tabasco
1/2 cup piccalilli or substitute
1 Tablespoon fresh thyme (with leaves reserved for garnish) or 1 teaspoon dry thyme
2 Tablespoons vinegar
2 Tablespoons prepared mustard
1-1.5 Tablespoon mayo

Instructions:
Cut boiled eggs in half, separating yolks from whites. Mash yolks and stir in dry mustard, salt and pepper. Add Tabasco and stir.

Drain piccalilli to remove as much moisture as possible. Finely chop piccalilli and add to yolks. Rough chop fresh thyme reserving some leaves for garnish. Add to yolks and stir. Add vinegar and mustard and stir. Add just enough mayo to make a smooth filling, but make sure it's not runny -- 1 Tablespoon should be enough.

Mix and fill egg halves. Garnish with reserved thyme leaves.

Enjoy!

Hope you enjoy the recipe. Happy Memorial Day from Cherishables!!

Monday, June 20, 2011

Sweet Treat Time!

My niece's birthday is at the end of May and the family always gets together over Memorial weekend to celebrate. She's a tween now and has a definite aversion to "little kid stuff." However, like most kids, she can really get her sweet tooth on. A few days before her party, I saw a post for a Party Hat Snack Mix on another blog I follow, cookies and cups. It was so cute, I just had to make it:

While there are lots of ingredients, and a few steps to follow before mixing, this is actually very simple to make. Basically, you make candy covered party hats out of Bugles, candy melts (you can find pretty much any color at your local craft store), non-pareils and gumdrops. The week leading up to the party was a bit on the hot & humid side so I made the hats the night before the party so I wouldn't have to wait for them to dry the next day. I mixed the rest of the mix the morning of the party. Right before I left, I combined the mixture and the hats.

The kids loved it! They thought the hats were the best thing they've ever eaten. This mix is a good balance of salty & sweet --which makes it very attractive to me. On the blog you'll also find instructions on making this for Christmas -- which I plan to do for my annual Christmas party this year. I also have plans on making witch hats for Halloween and making up baggies of the mix for a classroom Halloween party.

This mix is very forgiving and I'm sure you could add or subtract almost anything and it would be terrific. For instance, the next time I make this I think I'll double the peanuts and omit the popcorn. Maybe it's because it was warm that day, but the popcorn went a bit stale on us and we ended up picking around it. I would also like to try this recipe with the small, square pretzels. I'm thinking that would give a higher pretzel to chocolate ratio. Mmmmm...more chocolate on pretzels. Of course, when I make this for a classroom party I will leave the nuts out completely. I am confident the mix will be just as good.

You can find a link to the party mix post and recipe here along with some really terrific photos that serve to remind me to stop taking pics with my phone and to start using a real camera.

While you're there, check out the rest of the site for some really cute ideas and lovely photography.