Devilled Eggs

One of the books I got from the library is called Teens Cook. I'd gotten it a few years ago and remembered it positively. It's actually written by two sisters, which I guess is appropriate for this blog. Anyway, in there I found a recipe for Devilled Eggs, one of my very favorite sides in the world. This Thursday, I decided to try them.

Devilled Eggs

Makes 12

Ingredients: 
6 eggs
1/4 cup Mayonnaise
1 tsp prepared mustard (I think there is such a thing as powdered mustard?? and this means just something from a squirt bottle. I think.)
Salt
Pepper

Method

Gently place the eggs in a medium saucepan and cover them completely with cold water. Bring the water to a boil and simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes. Turn the heat off and let the eggs stand in the water until they are cool.

Basically, hard boil eggs however you want. Personally, I just put them in cold water, brought it to a boil, turned off the heat, and left them in there until cool, which is almost the same thing. My mom says this is a foolproof method, but be aware it takes about a million years.

Peel the eggs and slice each in half lengthwise. Separate the egg yolks from the whites, placing the yolks in a bowl and the whites on a serving plate.

I found it helped to crack the shell all over the egg (tap it on the edge of something) before I started peeling. Also, I would personally not do the serving plate just yet. A regular plate or the cutting board you should use to cut the eggs would be perfect.

Mash the egg yolks with a fork until they are finely crumbled.
This is super important.
Add the mayonnaise and mustard to the yolks and stir until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Inititally I was scared to oversalt, so I ended up adding more salt after they were done. I wish I knew how much I had used.

Spoon some of the filling into each egg half and set the halves on a serving plate.
Now, me being me I refused to just spoon the filling in. I put it into a ziploc bag with a star tip on, and piped the filling in.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

The biggest change here is that I added paprika. Why didn't they do paprika? After I piped in the filling, I tasted an egg. It was ok, but not great. After adding salt it was much better. Then my dad suggested paprika, which I had forgotten all about. So what you need to do is after piping in the filling, while your eggs are still on the cutting board (so that your serving plate looks nicer), sprinkle some salt on them. Then, get your paprika container and shake all the powder to the lid, then hold it above the egg. Tap really hard with your fingernail and it will dust the egg. Then put them on your plate. After trying my sprinkled-on-with-fingers paprika, we ended up doing the nail method and ended up doubling the amount of paprika.

Results

 These devilled eggs weren't the best I've had (I have had some magnificent devilled eggs), but they were really good. I ended up making less (maybe 8 or 9?) than the recipe called for due to some egg misfires. If you destroy one of your eggs, just take the yolk out and throw away or eat the rest. The yolk is important to the filling, but missing an egg is no big thing. These eggs disappeared within 10 minutes, and I missed them so much that I am right now making them again.

As you can see, I paprika'd on the plate.

A return to blogging

You may have noticed that there have been no posts on this blog for two years. There are a few reasons behind this, but the main one is that Capa and I stopped playing in the kitchen because she got really sick. Capa has Lyme disease and it makes life a struggle. There were 3 months where she couldn't even stand, her legs would just crumple. Nowadays she lays on the couch, uses a wheelchair out of the house when she can handle moving even that much, and goes to doctors.

On the other hand, these past two years I have become enamored with baking. This is hilarious, because I am at this point a pretty crummy baker. I always try to do things that are beyond me. I need to get really solid at small things, so that I have a good foundation to go from. A couple of weeks ago, I was hanging out in the library after classes and I decided I wanted to get some baking cookbooks. I ended up with a whole bunch of cookbooks for many different foods. I've been going through them with sticky flags to find recipes I want to try, and recently started using those recipes.

The other day, I was going to delete this blog because it has three posts and hasn't been used in two years, but in my search for a delete button, I ended up reading it. I like it! I think it's a fun way to write. My enjoyment of this blog, along with my new forays into the land of cooking have inspired me to write here again. Capa probably won't help me much, but she is always a good taster.

Also, I promise to be a much less snarky commentator. I have matured (some) in the past two years.
Lily