"Not your typical Deviled Eggs"
Prep Time: 2 minutes
Cooking time: 13 minutes
Ingredients
1 Doz. Eggs
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1/2 cup* Mayonnaise
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1/4 cup* Yellow Mustard
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2 tbsp.* hot sauce
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**Optional; sliced pickled red pepper
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**Optional; hot paprika powder
Pretty presumptuous, you're right. I'll be the first one to admit it, but I'll tell you why...
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Mom's side of the family come from Southern Pennsylvania, and for those of you familiar with the area, it's what I would consider "authentic Southern Style Country cooking". I'd put Grandma Pearl's cooking up against any southern cook, deep south or not so deep. If you bounce around the internet, almost every deviled egg recipe you'll find are made in the traditional "southern style"; some form of sweet pickle/relish and perhaps onions too. Now, don't get me wrong, it takes me back home, Grandma made them like that too and I love them dearly, but...
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Sometime, long ago and don't bother to ask when, the question popped in my mind, "Why do they call them 'deviled' if they're sweet? Shouldn't they be 'hot' instead?" Seemed logical to me so I set about making an amazingly simple 'deviled' egg.
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Perfect hard boiled eggs, every time? Magic or myth?
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Having fresh eggs here on the farm I had to do a little digging to find the best way to boil them and avoid the "sticky shell" mess that you get with fresh eggs. Along with that, I hate chalky overcooked yolks so here are a few tips that I have found to make easy to peel eggs with lovely yellow yolks, almost every time.
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1. Bring a pot of water to a full rolling boil. Add in a hefty dose of salt [2 tbsp.) and about a half cup of white vinegar. Keep at a rolling boil.
2. Gently spoon in your eggs with a large slotted spoon. Be careful not to crack them.
3. Cover the pot and keep on high heat for exactly one minute. This helps cook the whites properly as they take more heat to cook than the yolks
4. Keeping covered, reduce heat to as low as possible and let sit for 12-13 minutes.
5. When finished, dump the hot water and rinse quickly with cold water. Here in Vermont, the cold water is COLD so it works just fine. In warmer climates you might want to add some ice cubes. The key is you want to "shock" the shells to release them for easy peeling.
6. tap the egg ends first, then gentle crack the rest, start your peeling at whichever end of the egg releases first.
It's an amazingly simple recipe once you think about it, the hardest part may be getting the hard boiled eggs right!
So we start with a dozen hard boiled eggs [see the boiling tip above]. Slice the hard boiled eggs in half and extract the yolks, placing them in a medium sized bowl, carefully as you don't want to tear the whites. Place the whites on a plate with paper towel to absorb the excess moisture, I like to put them in the refrigerator while I'm making the filling.
Take a fork and mash the yolks well, not powdered by any means but the more you mash the smoother your filling will be. In fact if you've cooked the yolks right, you'll find a point where you just cant mash them beyond a certain point.
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Add in your mayonnaise, mustard and hot sauce. I prefer regular old yellow sandwich mustard over Dijon but you can get creative here [obviously] and when it comes to hot sauce I like the famous Louisiana brand we're all familiar with, not because of the heat so much but because I know how 'salty' it is. You'll notice that this recipe doesn't have your usual doses of salts, peppers and other spices. Using your fork, or spatula if you prefer, begin gently mixing in the mayo/mustard/hot sauce into the yolks. Mix until you have a nice thick but creamy consistency.
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In the original ingredients list I mentioned a half cup mayo, quarter cup mustard and then some hot sauce. That's likely a conservative amount for each as each batch is a little different than the next, mostly because yolk sizes vary. The key is you dont want to start with too much mayo/mustard, otherwise there's no fixing it other than to boil more eggs so I start conservatively. The point is to keep that 2:1 ration of mayo and mustard. Now when it comes to the hot sauce, add to suit your tastes, personally I like a heavy hand here as does the family! Just remember, more hot sauce adds more salt too so be careful.
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Last step before we get to the "options" is to fill your egg whites with your now 'deviled' egg yolks. I find the easiest way is to use either a pastry dispenser if you want to get fancy with the dispenser tips but just as easy it to fill up a zip-lock style bag and snip a small corner of the bag off. Squeeze the filling into the yolk halves. You can fill all 24 halves with the amount of yolk you have, but I typically will pull 4 yolk halves so the remaining 20 get a nice full dose.
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At that point you're technically done! Chill in the fridge for a bit as they are best served cold but you're ready to go! Unless...
If you want to bump these little beauties to the next level, lets look at a couple of quick and easy options.
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Paprika: You can use regular or sweet paprika, but if you happen to have some hot paprika (the hotter the better IMHO!), carefully sprinkle a little on the tops of each egg, not only does it look good but it also gives them a little added kick.
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Pickled Red Peppers: If your customers are purists, or if you just feel like you need a little relish to make it real, I suggest adding a few thinly sliced pickled red pepper slices taken right from my Hot and Sweet Red Pepper Pickled Eggs recipe! They will add just a hint of sweetness but keep the fire going too!
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And that's all there is, hope you enjoy!
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