A couple of weeks ago, I came across a video on the interwebs that showed how to make deviled eggs without all that tedious peeling of eggs! Cool – if it worked – I’ve been burned before by interwebs food videos. Still and all, this video and recipe came from the nice folk 
at foodnetwork.com, so I had hope.
The only problem I foresaw was that the recipe called for using a pastry bag, or – worse, for a person such as I – a plastic bag with an end clipped off to pipe the egg yolk mixture on to the whites.
I could see only disaster and an awful mess, so, I took a quick click over to amazon.com and found this handy dandy little decorator gun thing-y. Works a treat.
INGREDIENTS
•Cooking spray
•12 large eggs
•1/3 cup mayonnaise
•1 tbsp white vinegar
•2 tsp yellow mustard
•2 tbsp pepper relish*
•1/4 tsp sea salt (+ more, mebbe)
•1/4 tsp black pepper (+ more, mebbe)
•Paprika and sliced chives
Note: I used sherry vinegar for this batch because, well, it was there and looked interesting. In retrospect, I think I should’ve gone with the white vinegar. My sister thought the two teaspoons of mustard a bit too mustardy, but most of our dinner guests didn’t seem to mind – all of the eggs were gone in next to no time.
*Or, use your own fave sweet or dill pickle relish. Might I suggest chop pickle?
The most tedious part of this whole process will also be the first; separate the egg whites from the yolks. I did this manually and it took all of five minutes, so don’t despair.
Heat your oven to 350º and apply cooking spray to an eight inch square baking pan.
Whisk the egg whites just until frothy – use a fork or a wire whisk, I used a mixer and mine became a bit too frothy too quickly. All worked out in the end, I just now know for next time.
Cover the baking pan with foil and bake for twenty minutes, until the whites have fully set. Set aside to cool completely in the pan.
Note: I did everything up to this point the night before, stashing the baked egg white and uncooked yolks in the fridge until needed. Next time, I will remove the cooled whites from the baking pan and stash in the fridge wrapped in plastic wrap.
Apply cooking spray to a skillet over medium low heat, then whisk the egg yolks with a fork or whisk until smooth and add to the pan.
Scramble until fully cooked and a bit on the dry side.
Allow to coo just a bit, then transfer the scrambled yolks to the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade.
Add the mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, salt, and black pepper and pulse until well blended and smooth.
Give it a taste.
Hmmm. Yep, too much mustard, and that sherry vinegar was a touch on the sweet side. As I noted above, a couple of tablespoons of my green pepper relish did the trick, but also, next time, mebbe one teaspoon of dry mustard in place of the yellow stuff.
The pepper relish, and a pinch or two of extra sea salt and black pepper did the trick, now, to complete the eggs!
Turn the baked egg whites out onto a cutting board – as you can see, I had a wee, tiny bit of trouble with one bit near the center, all the more reason to turn the cooled whites out onto plastic wrap and stash ’em, well wrapped, in the fridge overnight.
Cut the baked egg whites into one inch squares or so. Mine were not uniform, because I was working around that bad spot. No one really seemed to mind.
Load the egg yolk mixture into your decorator gun thing-y (or pastry or plastic bag, if you are not as big a klutz as I am), and pipe the filling over the egg white squares. I had some yolk mixture left over, so added the broken bits of baked egg whites to it, gave it a stir with a fork, and stashed it back in the fridge for egg salad sammiches the next day.
Now, you have a choice…
Either sprinkle the dressed eggs with paprika and freshly chopped chives on the cutting board, then arrange on a serving platter, or…
opt, as I do, for the nicely messy choice of arrange the eggs on the platter, then sprinkling with the paprika and chives to make a kindofa lovely messover the eggs and the platter.
There were six of us for dinner at my sister’s house that evening, and we had these eggs, grilled halloumi with chili sauce, and corn queso for munchies.
There were no left overs.