How To Make Stuffed Egg – A Spicy Snack To Savour This Monsoon Eggs aren't just high in protein but super versatile too. Highlights Eggs are super versatile and are used in countless dishes…
One corn for fiddliness, and the other for time consumed (it's well worth it, though). Deviled eggs are one of those foods that seem to come into being about the same time as the wheel, first human thought may very well have been about this food stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if this were at all true (though I suspect it is not in the slightest).
Actually, a variation of Deviled Egg's can be found in most cuisines accross the globe, spanning from Arabic and Middle Eastern provinces, right through to Scandinavia and even Asia. All recipes work on the same idea of boiling the eggs, extracting the yolk and prettying it up somehow, and then stuffing it back into the sockets whence it came. One of the earliest recipes I can find for stuffed eggs comes from a medieval cookbook, here is an excerpt from An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the Thirteenth Century (translated by Charles Perry) for Andalusian Stuffed eggs:
Take as many eggs as you like, and boil them whole in hot water; put them in cold water and split them in half with a thread. Take the yolks aside and pound cilantro and put in onion juice, pepper and coriander, and beat all this together with Murri, oil and salt and knead the yolks with this until it forms a dough. Then stuff the whites with this and fasten it together, insert a small stick into each egg, and sprinkle them with pepper, God Willing.
Now, I think this is absolutely precious. After a little bit of research I learned that Murri is sort-of a salty-spicy-nutty-breaddy condiment used to put kick into food, kind of like a curry paste, and in combination with all the other ingredients it bares a striking resemblance to today's Deviled Egg. Speaking of...
Deviled Egg is one variation of what is more commonly known as 'stuffed egg', you can also find it being called 'filled egg', 'curried egg' and in Hungary it's known as 'casino egg'. Here in Australia, 'curried egg' is a very common name for this food-stuff because of the nature of the ingredients used, I also suspect that is bares some resemblance to curry egg sandwiches which are a truck-stop special in these parts. Wherever you go, however, you will find an egg that has mayonnaise and mustard mixed into its boiled yolks and that, in the grand scheme of things, is all that matters.
In my variation, which is the variation that my mother and her mother and even her mother all cook to, I use an Australian product called 'Keen's Traditional Curry Powder'. This company has been around for 150 years, and have been producing this ghetto-fab, and slightly offensive, white-trash of a curry powder following the same recipe from the very start. This particular curry powder has turmeric, coriander seeds, salt, fenugreek, black pepper, chili powder, rice flour, allspice and celery powder; similar to the Murri. I can't find any substitutes overseas, but if you combine 1/2 a teaspoon each of these ingredients, and grind to a fine powder, you should be able to recreate the flavour anywhere in the world. It's nasty, but it's oh so good (please don't rat me out to anyone in the Asian continent). And no, in-case you were wondering, you can't just use any old curry powder, the flavour is just not quite the same (and a little bit weird, actually).
Also, and I know I'm doing a bit of globe trotting here, the mayonnaise that I like to use in this recipe is a Japanese brand called 'Kewpie'. I like it because of the different vinegar flavours, but you can use any Mayonnaise that you like and it really doesn't make a difference (though, I prefer Kewpie and/or whole egg mayonnaise). If you can't get Kewpie, and you really want to add the vinegar flavour, you could add half a teaspoon of rice-wine vinegar to the mayonnaise and mix in before adding to the egg yolks. To be honest, if you can get rice-wine vinegar then you most likely will be able to get Kewpie as well (they normally go hand in hand), and lately Kewpie has exploded across the world as a really popular ingredient in bento and sushi.
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Ingredients.
12 eggs (1 dozen - fresh)
4 tblsp of mayonnaise
2 tblsp of butter or margarine
2 tblsp of Keens Curry Powder or curry powder mix.
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How To Do!
The instructions I am about to give read similarly to the one's given way back in mediaeval Andalusia.
First bring a pot of water to the boil, then gently spoon the eggs in being careful not to splash and scald yourself - I use a pasta server because it cradles the egg well and stops me from dropping the eggs accidentally into the water. Let the eggs cook on a rapid boil for around about ten minutes, you want to yolk to be pretty much cooked through. One way to tell if it's done is when you pull an egg out of the water it should dry up within a few seconds from the heat (I cheat and use an egg-mate).
Once they are done place the eggs in some ice water and let them cool down completely, the benefit of doing this is that the abrupt temperature change seems to make the eggs shrink a little bit in the shells which makes them easier to peel. Once they are cool enough to handle, peel them.
This can be an annoying, frustrating and tedious task because you have to go gently and cautiously, otherwise the delicate eggs will peel and chunk apart. The best way I've found is to crack the shell in a few different places on a hard surface, and then try and peel away the shell and membrane underneath. If the eggs are fresh they should peel without too-many problems, older eggs tend to give a little more grief. As you peel each egg shake them around in the ice water, just to get rid of any left over bits of shell, and place them to one side (in a bowl, so they don't roll away, is best) .
Once all the eggs are peeled and washed, slice them in half lengthways through the centre of the yolk and then gently remove the yolks from their sockets into a separate dry bowl, place the whites to one side.
Next, add the spices and condiments to the egg yolks, and fork through until you have a fluffy mixture at about the consistency of dense mousse. Finally, add about a teaspoon of the mixture to each egg-white socket; don't stuff them in, however, just gently push it in - if you stuff it too densely the egg white will collapse and even if it doesn't it will be too big to put into mouths in one go (which is sort of the point).
These eggs will go fast at parties, so make-sure you put some aside for yourself. If you are planning on serving them for dinner make-sure you are dining with someone you are intimate with, these are eggs and curry powder after-all.
