Curried Deviled Eggs with Mango Chutney

The original recipe is from Epicurious but my sis and I have made some changes that our guests ♥ love ♥. They've been very popular at our Superbowl parties but they would be lovely for Easter as well! Do something new this year!

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Modified Epicurious Recipe:
• 6 large hard-boiled eggs, shelled
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise (We like Hellmann's Mayo called Best Foods on the West Coast)
• Minced green onion to taste (minimum 1 TBLSP)
• Yellow Curry Powder to taste (minimum 1 TBLSP) (my guests like lots!)
• Tabasco sauce to taste
  
• Mustard to taste (Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard)
• Topping: Mango Chutney (approx 1 oz)

Cut hard-boiled eggs lengthwise in half. Scoop yolks into medium bowl. Mash yolks with fork or in mixer. Add mayonnaise, minced green onion, mustard, tabasco, and curry powder; mix well. Season yolk mixture to taste with salt and pepper. Fill ziploc bags with the yolk mixture and cut off a small corner and pipe the yolk mixture into the empty egg white halves. Arrange eggs on platter. Garnish eggs with mango chutney and serve.

When you boil your eggs, you may want to use an egg timer because overboiled eggs get grey/green yolks. Set the eggs and timer in the pot at the same time and into cold water. Do not put eggs from the fridge directly into hot water because that temperature difference will make them crack open.

After boiling, cool the eggs in the fridge for a few hours or soak them immediately in very cold water. I believe this makes the eggs easier to peel.

 

When peeling the eggs, make sure that you also remove the thin white membrane under the shell. I've seen several men peeling eggs for the first time be confused by this membrane.

  

Halve the eggs lengthwise with a NON-SERRATED knife (unless you want a pattern on the egg whites). Wipe your knife between each cut so that you don't spread yolk all over the whites. You want the whites to look clean and the yolks to only be in the middle, when all is said and done.

Throw the yolks in a bowl for mashing or mixing. I use a KitchenAid Mixer.

Mix in your curry powder and make it as flavorful as you want. Take into account the power of the curry versus the wine pairing. Make sure your wine will hold up to the flavor. My delicious curry is from Aphrodisia Herb Shoppe in NYC (thanks to my husband).

Mince in green onions or chives. The smaller, the better (IMHO) but remember the more you cut onions, the more the onion taste will leach out into the mixture. And don't cut your onions on a dish like I did! Once you've mixed in the onions, fill a ziploc bag with your yolk mixture and get ready to pipe the mixture into your egg whites. Cut off a small corner of your plastic bag and test piping it into your eggs. If it doesn't look/feel right, make the cut larger.

Get some delish mango chutney to top your deviled eggs. I like Sukhi's.

Voilà! 

Search Amazon.com Home&Garden for deviled egg plate 

Superbowl Party Hors d'Oeuvres

I'm not sure whether it's even socially acceptable to use the phrase "hors d'oeuvres" when speaking of the holiday when "Americans eat more chips, popcorn, pretzels and snack nuts than on any other day  of the year," according to Penn State researchers in Encyclopedia of American Holidays and National Days.

I'm willing to bet that my Superbowl hors d'oeuvres are fancier than most football game spreads. One year, I toiled over the stove poaching quail eggs to top individual portions of Israeli shakshuka served in porcelain Chinese soup spoons. Never again.

I've also made angel hair pasta with mini meatballs, also individually portioned in those porcelain spoons, with parmesan crisp decorations from The French Laundry Cookbook. This one is easy for anyone to assemble and can be cooked in bulk unlike the poached quail eggs.

One of my favorite standbys has become the curried deviled egg. My sister shared this recipe with me after a successful party debut and I have found it to be successful as well. I follow the Epicurious recipe but I omit the olives, increase the curry, use green onions/chives, splash in some tabasco and mustard, and top it with a mango chutney from Sukhi's.

Last year, I was inspired by the "Hearts of Palm with Purée of Marrow Beans" recipe from The French Laundry Cookbook, which takes forever (3-4 hrs) to make for only a few people. I reconfigured the reccipe to take about an hour for 40 people. I created palm hearts filled and topped with a tuscan-herbed bean & cream cheese spread. These were a hit and I plan to make them again this year with mascarpone instead of vegan cream cheese and boost the flavors a bit (perhaps with some fried bacon). Here's how I made them last year: I took Trader Joe's tuscan white bean spread and mixed it with a vegan cream cheese to thicken it (just keep additing it until the mixture is thick enough to stand on its own like cake frosting). After adding herbs and spices to taste, including white pepper, I piped the filling into the center of the palm hearts as well as on top (just like cupcake frosting). I experimented by sprinkling the "frosting" with bits of crispy fried onion, which tasted fine but not special. I refrigerated them so that the filling remained thick and did not drip out.

This year, I'm planning to make very thin corn muffins (like thick blini) using Ridgecut Girstmills' stone ground cornbread mix (wonderful texture and sweet corn taste), topped with a bit of crème fraîche and salsa. I also hope to find a use for the amazing paneer that Cowgirls Creamery makes...any ideas?

We'll see what else I conjure up this year!