World cuisine-inspired Deviled Eggs

If you use Pinterest, you probably noticed that around Easter, everyone and their husband's uncle's mother-in-law's best friend's cow pins deviled egg recipes, because if you have kids, there's a good chance you're dyeing eggs.  And if you're dyeing eggs, there's an even better chance you hard-boiled them.  And then you're stuck trying to eat a dozen or so hard-boiled eggs in a relatively short time period.  Deviled eggs are a great way to do this.  Deviled eggs are also a neat opportunity to explore savory flavors.

World cuisine is a great source of flavor inspiration.  While no one dish or combination of flavors can capture the complexity and diversity of national and/or regional cuisines, one can see certain flavors predominate, or certain dishes are near and dear to people's hearts.  I've used that approach to create these deviled egg recipes-- one is inspired by flavors I associate with Mexican foods; the other is inspired by Greek flavors.

A friend of mine told me recently that she really enjoyed these recipes; apparently she does't usually like deviled eggs and just tried them to be polite.  For her benefit (and that of others, probably), I'm going to try to include measurements.  Please note that the measurements listed in the following recipes are estimates, and should be adjusted to taste.  If in doubt, put in less to start with.


Mexican-inspired Deviled Eggs
4 hard-boiled eggs
2-3 Tbsp mayonaise
1 tsp yellow mustard
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
pinch onion powder (a big pinch)
1 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro leaves, plus some for garnish
salt and pepper


Cut the eggs in half and pop the yolks out.  Place the yolks in a small bowl and add the mayo, mustard, chili powder, cumin, and onion powder.  Using a fork, mash everything together until it is [more or less] smooth.  Stir in the cilantro leaves, and season to taste with salt and pepper.  If you're feeling fancy, pipe the yolk mixture back into the egg white halves.  If you just want to get them done, don't want to deal with cleaning a piping bag, don't have a piping bag (and don't want to use the plastic baggie with a snipped corner method), or can't bear the thought of losing even a little bit of the delicious yolk mixture to a bag, just spoon the mixture into the egg white halves.  They'll taste good enough that people shouldn't mind too much.  Garnish, if desired, with a sprig of fresh cilantro.

Greek-inspired Deviled Eggs
4 hard-boiled eggs
2-3 Tbsp mayonaise
1 tsp yellow mustard (a skimpy tsp)
1/4 tsp lemon juice
dash dried lemon zest
1/2 tsp dried oregano
pinch garlic powder
salt and pepper

As above, halve the eggs and scoop out the yolks.  Mash together the yolks, mayo, mustard, lemon juice and zest, oregano, and garlic powder.  Season to taste with salt and pepper, and place into the halved egg whites.



Something I've learned the hard way: egg whites are slippery buggers.  Watch out!  My recommendation is not to serve them on a regular plate.  Use a dish with sides, like a pie pan or a storage container, or one of those fancy egg-plates that have indentations just for deviled eggs.  

Also, if you can let these recipes sit for a little bit, you'll have better flavors, because the ingredients will have more time to blend their flavors together.  I recommend doing this before filling the eggs, because a small bowl is pretty easy to cover tightly.  The filling will dry out if you aren't careful, and it can look a little funky when that happens.  

Finally, I am always on the look-out for tips for "perfect" eggs.  I have not yet worked out the magic formula.  What I have worked out is the easiest way to cook them: put the eggs in a pot filled with cool water, and bring it to a boil.  Once it comes to a rolling boil, turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let the eggs cook with carry-over heat until the water has cooled.  I like this method because it saves me wondering how long is long enough for cooking them.  It also uses energy efficiently; you only need to heat the water to a boil.  I usually boil the eggs right before I need to run and errand or something, so all that carry-over cooking/cooling happens while I'm busy with other things.  It makes it seem like I'm not waiting.

Mini-quiches… or a souffle?

I've thought for a while that I would like to, someday, make a soufflé.  But I've been put off by fear from listening to stories of collapsed soufflé frustrations.  Except I think I almost made some on my own.  It went like this:  I had some not-so-fresh-anymore fresh spinach that I needed to use up, and I decided quiche sounded good.  Except there wasn't much of the spinach; I had been eating it pretty faithfully.  So I decided on mini-quiches.  And then I got curious about what, exactly, defines a quiche.  According to one source, it's basically a savory custard.  Yum!  That's an even more delicious prospect than my description, "egg pie" (see previous "Quiche" blog).  So with that in mind, I got fancy.  I separated my eggs, beat the whites, and used what I think of as a typical custard approach, like for cream pie.  Everything turned out nice and quiche-y.  But they puffed up in the oven!  How cool!  And the deflated as the cooled… and I realized I'd heard that story before.  Sure enough, when I checked what exactly a soufflé is, I had more or less stumbled upon it with this recipe.  So now I'm not so intimidated.  

Mini souffle-quiches (makes 6)

Pie dough of choice

1/8 C cooked spinach (see notes)

1 1/2 slices lunch-ham, diced

1 egg, separated

~1/4 C milk

1/8 C shredded Italian blend or mozzarella cheese, plus some to top

salt and pepper, to taste

Prebake your pie-crust:  Preheat the oven to 375˚F.  Take a piece of dough about the size of a ping-pong ball and press it into a muffin tin, making sure to evenly distribute along the bottom and up the sides of the cup.  Line with foil to prevent over-browning and weird puffing-up.  You don't need to poke these with a fork, but you can if it makes you feel better.  I've seen recipes that say to do this; I've seen others that say DON'T, like the whole thing will blow up in your face if you do.  I poked some of mine and not others, and by the time they were finished, I couldn't  tell which were which.  Bake ~10 minutes until the crust seems slightly set.  Remove the foil, and bake an additional 10 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven (and turn the thing either off or down) and allow the crusts to cool.  

When the crusts are cooled, preheat the oven to 360˚F (I know this is weird, I was guessing at a good temperature, and this is what my oven and I settled on).  Combine the spinach and diced ham in a small bowl, season with pepper, and set aside.  Whip the egg white to frothiness in another small bowl, and set aside.  Combine the egg yolk and milk in a small saucepan, season with salt and pepper, and heat over medium-high heat, whisking all the while.  When it begins to thicken, begin adding it, 1 spoonful at a time, to the egg whites, whisking/beating them thoroughly with each addition to maintain texture.  After you've added a couple spoonfuls, you can add larger amounts of the yolk mixture.  Stir in the spinach and ham mixture and the cheese.  Spoon into the crusts and bake for 10 minutes.  Sprinkle a little more cheese on top of each mini-quiche, and bake 10 minutes more.  

I love that this was accidentally a soufflé.  It really makes me feel better about making them in the future.  I would recommend trying it as a first soufflé yourself, because if it does collapse, you still have delicious quiche worth eating.  I know, because mine collapsed over time (as they cooled) and kept quite well in the fridge until I re-warmed them.  So go ahead and give them a try: you may surprise yourself!

"Divine" may be a bit of a stretch

A few years ago, my family and I were members of St. Timothy's Aiea.  During this time, the congregation compiled a cookbook as a fundraiser.  I guess, from the number of friend I have with similar books, that this is a fairly normal thing.  I got really excited.  It was a fairly diverse congregation, so the odds of finding new and exciting recipes was pretty good.  And everyone puts their best foot forward for such a thing-- either something cheap, quick and never-fail, a crowd-pleaser, or the most amazing thing they ever learned to make.  It's a pretty cool thing.




Recently, I found myself wondering what I ought to do with the chicken pieces I had in my freezer (I'd bought and broken down a whole bird while making soup, but had hardly used any meat.)  I starting flipping through the church cookbook, and decided on "Chicken Divine".  Not only is the name pretty promising, but I had most of the ingredients handy.  It's an interesting, rather Hawaiian casserole.  I mean, I cannot think of anywhere else people would combine cheese and curried mayonnaise.  But in Hawaii, sure.  Why not have some Spam with that?  But that's another blog…

Below is the recipe as I found it in the book; check my notes (in italics) for clarification and/or modification.

Chicken Divine
2 10-oz. boxes frozen broccoli, chopped
2 C boneless chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces (or ham, if preferred)
1 10-oz. can cream of mushroom soup (or cream of chicken, if preferred)
1 C mayonnaise
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 C grated cheddar cheese
1/2 C bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 350˚F.  Pour boiling water over the broccoli and drain well, arrange in a buttered 9x13-inch pan.  Distribute the chicken over the broccoli.
In a mixing bowl, combine the soup, mayo, lemon juice, and curry powder.  Pour/spread the mixture over the chicken and broccoli.  Top with cheese and bread crumbs, then bake 30 minutes.

Notes: 
- I used less broccoli than called for-- I got a 1 lb bag and figured that was close enough.  Consequently, I also used a smaller pan-- closer to 7x11 than 9x13.
- Pre-cook the chicken.  I went back and forth on whether or not to do this.  I ended up partially cooking the chicken, and still felt it was just slightly under-done.  I dealt with this by microwaving the food, which was a little silly when it was piping hot out of the oven, but convenient when re-heating.
- Use more curry powder.  And possibly some pepper.  I also am a cheese fan, so I used closer to a whole cup.  And probably more bread crumbs, too.



This dish could probably have been named better.  For one, the broccoli seemed to be more present than the chicken.  And while it was a delicious dish, "divine", to me, has connotations of lightness.  (Think angel food cake.)  The mayo, while giving the casserole a semi-whipped texture, is rather heavy.  So much so that, although it was tasty, I wasn't thrilled at the idea of eating tons of leftovers.  The mayo just sort of sits in my stomach.  It's probably a psychological thing-- for the longest time I would not eat mayo, so knowing how much is in this probably put me off a tad.  

That said, I really did like the flavors of this dish.  It was rich, it was flavorful without being spicy, zesty, or over-whelming.  I would recommend it for potlucks or feeding relatives while they're visiting-- any time you don't expect lots of leftovers.  And should you have some anyway, it does reheat well.