Deviled Eggs & Egg Salad: boring but a blank canvas for something bold or bright.

One of the basic American nibbles is the deviled egg. Generally it is a pretty bland item on the table of cold appetizers. So is it’s chopped up form, egg salad. You can shrug and ignore it, or you can put your imagination to work and make something out of it.

Basic Deviled Eggs: Boil six eggs, shell them, slice them in half and pop the yokes into a small bowl. Add to the yokes: a quarter cup of mayonnaise, a teaspoon of mustard, a grind or two of white pepper and a pinch of turmeric to hype the yellow color Mash and combine all the ingredients into a paste, put into a pastry bag or into a plastic storage bag, nip the corner of the bag and use it as an ad hoc pastry bag and squeeze the yoke mixture into the cavity left in the half eggs where the yoke used to be.


Photo from Wikipedia

While the above is good, it is also ordinary, even if you have used fresh free range organic eggs with a rich country taste instead of the bland hatchery laid eggs. Using the basic recipe you can take the eggs in a more interesting directions. Here are some ways to pep them up and give them some zip.

Cajun Eggs: Add fresh chopped chives and as much Tobasco Sauce as you want and substitute Creole or another whole grain mustard for the ordinary French’s Salad Mustard.

Green Herb Eggs: Chop up a couple shallots, two tablespoons of fresh parsley, a couple teaspoons of chopped chives and a a tea spoon of capers.

Sicilian Eggs: Add a tablespoon of capers, a table spoon of fresh basil, a teaspoon of lemon zest and a small dab of anchovy paste, mix and dust the stuffed with fine chopped parsley.

New York Eggs: Add a couple pieces of smoked salmon, a quarter teaspoon of chopped fresh dill, one chopped shallot, one teaspoon chopped chives and a quarter teaspoon of prepared horseradish.

Tarragon Eggs: Add a pinch of chopped tarragon, two table spoons of chopped French Cornichons, a quarter teaspoon of lemon zest.

Polish Eggs: Use sour cream instead of mayonnaise, add half a teaspoon of chopped dill, a quarter teaspoon of horseradish, a teaspoon of chopped parsley and a scant teaspoon of Russian style honey mustard.

French Eggs: Add a teaspoon of Dijon Mustard, two teaspoons of chervil if available parsley if not, white pepper and two teaspoons of chopped cornishons.

Yorkshire Eggs: Add a table spoon of Cross & Blackwell’s Chow Chow chopping up the pickle to small nubs, two teaspoons of fresh parsley. Unless you make your own private mustard pickles their is no substitute for Chow Chow.

The list can go on and on with your imagination and ingenuity the only limits.

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