How To Make Deviled Eggs

Deviled eggs are the Rodney Dangerfield of party foods: they get no respect. But bring a plate of them and they'll all disappear. You can add all kinds of extras to them, make them look fancy if you want. As long as you get the basics right you'll have a winner.

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Ingredients

1 dozen large eggs
1 cup mayonnaise

Mayonnaise

3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons white vinegar
3 teaspoons mustard powder
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups olive pomace oil

3 tablespoons secret ingredient

Directions

Start by hard-boiling the eggs. Put the eggs in a pot that's large enough for all of them to be in a single layer with some room to spare. Add a couple of tablespoons of salt. Don't bother measuring, it's just to raise the boiling temperature of the water a little bit.



Fill the pot with cold water so the eggs are covered by at least a half-inch.



Turn the heat on high until the water boils. If any of the eggs are cracked, you'll end up with a little egg drop soup. Don't worry about it, you can clean it out when you're done.



After the water boils remove the pot from the heat, put a lid on, and set a timer for 20 minutes.



After the 20 minutes, rinse the eggs in cold water until they're cool enough to handle.



Peel all the eggs, and rinse them with cold water to make sure there are no pieces of shell left on them.



I've never done a dozen eggs without a least one or two falling apart a little bit when I peel them. That's why I always cook a couple more than I think I'm going to need. Worst case is I have some extras.



Slice each egg lengthwise. The one on the left is what you want them to look like. The one on the right is the one that was cracked. Some of the white leaked out in the water, but it's still perfectly edible.



Pop the yolks out. This one had the yolk a little bit off center, so the cavity in one side is really shallow.



If you can see that the yolk is close to one side, slice through that side. That way both halves will have the same amount of space.

Separate the "pretty" halves from the "rejects". Don't worry, we'll use them later. Keep all the yolks in a separate bowl.

Making the mayo

Put the egg yolks and vinegar in the narrowest cup your stick blender will fit in. Blend for a couple of seconds until they form an emulsion. Add the salt and mustard powder and half the oil. Blend again until it is thick. Pour the rest of the oil in slowly, mixing constantly.

Add a cup of the mayonnaise to the yolks and start breaking them up with a fork.



If you made your own mayo with the mustard powder, or if you like your deviled eggs mild, that's it for the ingredients. I like a little zing, so I add two or three tablespoons of my secret ingredient. I hope you can't guess from this picture what it is.



Keep mixing the yolks and mayo until smooth and creamy. Add more mayo if you need it to get the right consistency.



You can put the filling in a pastry bag with a star tip to fill the whites. I like the rustic look. (I also like not having to clean little nozzles.)



Don't forget to fill the rejects. Deviled eggs don't all make it out of the kitchen anyway, you might as well eat the ones that you can't serve to guests.



Arrange the filled eggs and refrigerate until you're ready to serve them.



And that's it.





Okay, that's not it. Some people think you have to add the paprika.



You can't really taste it, but it looks kind of nice I suppose.

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So do you spell it "deviled egg" with one "l" or "devilled egg" with two? My spellchecker says it's one "l" but according to Google it's more common with two.

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Since Fiona suggested deviled eggs when I asked for ideas, she'll be getting an eBook version of my cookbook. (Fiona, send me an email so I can send it.)

Stay tuned to see who else is getting a copy. If you want one, send me a suggestion at requests@cooklikeyourgrandmother.com. If I make it I'll send you a copy of the book.

How To Make ... Your Wife Happy

I know I promised the next two posts were going to be apples and pie crust. But I had to share.

I was sitting down to write the apple post and my wife asked me to make her some chicken salad. I had the laptop on the lap desk, my feet up on the table ... I was all settled in!

"Oh, but you make it so much better. And I already set everything out for you."

But ... the lap desk ... and ... yes dear.

So I went into the kitchen and mixed up the

two cups of leftover chicken, diced
1/2 cup of mini dill pickles, diced
1/2 cup mayonnaise

and brought her a sandwich.

As she was eating, I told her, "You know this is totally going up on the web, right?"

"Yeah, whatever, just get me a cup of milk."

"Yes dear."

How To Make Thousand Island Dressing

Every now and then when I stop to think about it I wonder why ketchup is so much more popular than thousand island dressing. As far as I'm concerned thousand island is much more flavorful, and works on just about everything ketchup works on. Any fast food place that brags about their "secret sauce" is really talking about thousand island. (Oops, now it's not a secret any more.) One of my favorite uses -- and the one that gets the strangest looks -- is to use it instead of duck sauce with egg rolls. Mmmmmmm.

If you look carefully and shop around you may be able to find a brand that isn't mostly canola oil and corn syrup. But if you can't find a good one, this recipe is just what you need. It's way better than any bottled brand I've had, and only takes a couple of minutes to make a batch.

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Ingredients

2 cups mayonnaise

Mayonnaise

2 extra large eggs
1-1/2 cups olive pomace oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard powder

2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced pickle (sweet, dill, or combination)
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 extra large egg, hard boiled (optional)

Directions

Dice the onion.



Dice the pickle. If you have small ones, cut them in quarters ...



... and chop several at once.



For larger pickles, you may want to cut out the seeds before dicing the rest.

Set the onion and pickle aside. This is for your mise en place.




Mince the garlic.



If you're making the mayonnaise from scratch, put the eggs, white vinegar, mustard powder and oil in your mixing cup in that order. Put the stick blender all the way to the bottom, turn it on and slowly pull it up to the top. Don't worry if it's not thick enough for a sandwich, this is going to be in dressing.



Rather than get the food processor dirty, add the onion, pickle, garlic, tomato paste and balsamic vinegar to the cup the mayo was in.







Process it with the stick blender -- it doesn't have to be very smooth -- then add it to the mayo and stir.



Check the taste and add black pepper if needed.



And that's it. You could eat this by itself, it's so good.



One extra touch is to add a diced hard-boiled egg.

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Regular readers might notice I did lettuce yesterday and salad dressing today. You might think that means I'll be doing some kind of salad in the next day or two. That's very observant of you. But I'll be you don't expect taco salad.

Okay, now you expect taco salad. This is another one of those "delicious but not pretty enough for company" recipes. Why do we do that? Have favorite recipes that we won't serve to guests? I've never understood that. If you have any recipes that you like, but you won't serve to guests -- or your wife won't let you serve it to them -- post it in the comments. I'm thinking about doing a collection of "Too Good for Company" recipes.

How To Make Old-Fashioned Macaroni Salad

I've never liked the pre-made macaroni salad you get at the grocery store, with over-cooked noodles swimming in in runny, watery dressing. This version comes out nearly dry, the pasta soaking up most of the dressing, and with a bit of crunch from the veggies. You can easily substitute cooked, cubed potatoes for the macaroni and have a really good potato salad.

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Ingredients

one pound elbow macaroni
1/2 sweet onion
two stalks celery, green part only
one cup mayonnaise
three tablespoons white vinegar
one teaspoon celery seed
4-6 large hard-boiled eggs (see note on presentation)

Directions

Boil the eggs and cook the pasta the way you normally do. When the pasta is done and you have drained it in a collander, mix it under cold running water until it is completely cool. If you use your hand to mix it, you'll be able to tell when it's cooled down.

While the pasta is cooking, dice the onion and celery according to the directions for making mirepoix.



I've made this salad a hundred times using store-bought mayonnaise, so that's what I showed in the ingredients. If you're serving this with a main dish that's going to take a lot of attention, like the ribs I served them with, you might want to save yourself the trouble of making the mayo. (Subscribe to my RSS feed in the column to the right to get the recipe for the ribs and home-made cider onion sauce as soon as I finish writing it up.)

Since you already have the eggs and vinegar out, though, you'll never have a better time to give it a try. Just use:

1 extra large egg
1-1/2 teaspoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup olive pomace oil

Put the ingredients in a tall, narrow cup or jar in the order listed, lower a stick blender in, turn it on and slowly pull it up to the top. Instant mayonnaise. Pour it into the macaroni.



Or add one cup of prepared mayonnaise.

Add the onion, celery, vinegar and celery seed and mix well. Scoop down along the side using a silicone or rubber spatula, and lift from the center.



Here's a quick clip showing what I'm talking about.



Dice four of the eggs according to the directions for how to dice hard boiled eggs. It's easiest do the third slice directly over the bowl.



Mix again, gently so you don't mash up the egg. You want both the white and yellow bits to stay whole.



And that's it.

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Presentation

If you are taking this to a potluck, the traditional presentation is to slice a couple more eggs and place the rings on top, the way I did in potato salad with bacon and egg.

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A note about personal taste

I brought some of this over to my in-laws, and my father-in-law noted how much drier it was than what he is used to. There's two parts to this. First, yes it is drier. That's how I like it. Second, the macaroni will soak up a lot of the mayonnaise overnight. I usually add more when I'm having leftovers.

Tuna Puffs

This is the kind of dish you might be embarrassed to serve to company. You could probably fancy it up by using some kind of artisan bread, and going with seared ahi or tuna steaks or something with better foodie cred than canned tuna. But when you're not worried about impressing anyone, this is comfort food that will take you straight back to your childhood.

And in honor of childhood, this recpie is being submitted for the Food for Plastic Challenge III. Tupperware will be donating some of the sales to the Boys & Girls Clubs. Head on over and vote for this if you like it.

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Ingredients

2 small cans tuna (6 ounces each)
4 hamburger buns
2 large eggs
1/2 cup mayonnaise (don't measure this, see below)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions

Before starting, turn the oven on to 450°, and set the rack at least 9-12 inches from the top. Open the tuna and drain well.

Set the tuna aside and separate the two eggs. No, this does not mean put one egg on the left side of the table and the other egg on the right side of the table. (Smart alec.) It means separate the white from the yolk.

There are lots of tools that are supposed to help you with this, like this one:



You're supposed to crack the egg into the separator, and the white will drain out through the hole while the yolk stays behind. But I can't figure out which hand to hold it with while I'm using both of mine to crack the eggs. I think you're supposed to crack the eggs one at a time into a cup, then pour it into the separator thing. But if you do that, you end up with an extra cup -- and the separator -- to wash when you're done.

That's why I do it the way I learned growing up. Crack the egg in half, then pour the yolk back and forth between the two halves, letting the white run over the edge.



Do this for both eggs and you should have about a quarter-cup of egg whites and two yolks.



If you want to really go all out, take the two yolks and make your own mayonnaise. If not, either give the yolks to your dog or dump them down the drain. Eggs are about a dollar a dozen, you can afford to dump out two yolks.

Mix as much mayonnaise as you like into the drained tuna. Some people like it nearly dry, some like it soupy. If you've never made tuna fish and you're not sure exactly how much mayo you need for two cans, just mix in one spoonful at a time until it looks right. Although if you've really never even made tuna fish, I don't know that you should be playing with the oven.

Now we're going to turn the whites into a meringue. That just means whip it until it gets light and fluffy. Put the whites in a large bowl and go at it with a beater.



If you're going fast enough, you should see them starting to foam up almost immediately.



Keep going until you have a bowl full of white fluff.



Now you're ready for assembly. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. (It doesn't make a difference to the food, it just makes cleanup easier.) Lay out the hamburger buns, and divide the tuna evenly among them.



Top each one with a spoonful of the whipped egg.



Then a little of the mozzarella.



Now switch the oven to the broiler setting and put the pan in. Don't worry if it hasn't finished pre-heating yet, you just want it to not be cold when you start cooking. Don't walk away. The cheese will start to bubble in less than a minute. You'll get a really good idea of where the hot spots are in your burners by looking at the tops of the tuna puffs when you pull them out.



If you want them to be evenly finished, swap them around on the pan to put the less-finished ones under the hotspots. As long as you don't have any completely raw, though, you can plate them up with a little variety in done-ness. Let the kids pick which ones they think are "better" and you take the rest. Really, though, they'll all be good.