Deviled Eggs

Mex Deviled Eggs

I grew up with deviled eggs as part of many antipasto courses. They were pretty typically egg salad stuffed back into the egg white with some paprika and maybe a pimento stiffed olive as garnish. Both my mother and my Nana had one of those cool egg plates that cradled the eggs just perfectly. That was the 60s and 70s, and then deviled eggs seemed to fall from the appetizer top 10 chart and became "a vintage appetizer'.

Then mid aughts, they made an adventurous comeback when some upscale chefs began experimenting with offerings like truffle deviled eggs and yellowfin tuna deviled eggs. Today, it seems like the cooked yolk and white are merely the vehicle for whatever you can imagine.

When I made the recipe I'm sharing here, it was at the same time as I was making some traditional egg salad for a future blog. I figured I'd kill 2 birds since I needed photos for both. When I set out to make the deviled eggs I wanted to stay as far away as I could from traditional egg salad like my mom and Nana made.

I had some cooked bacon in the fridge, some sun dried tomatoes and some cilantro paste on hand; a Mexican deviled egg was born.

I am not typically one to measure things out, but I'm trying to get better in the interest of sharing with you. So, while I was making this batch, I took careful note of proportions of ingredients: 1t of mayo for each egg is the real key proportion, then you can add the other ingredients to taste -- keeping in mind that there is only so much you can stuff into and on top of half a cooked egg white.

Since I had cooked 8 eggs to divide between the 2 recipes, I took advantage of picking the most perfectly shaped ones for this recipe. It's worth noting that there is some symmetry to the eggs and when I slice them in half, I do my best to slice along that line.

Although my instructions say to throw all of the filling ingredients onto one bowl and mix, because I was experimenting with quantities, I mixed the yolks and all the seasonings together first and gradually added the mayo. Now that I'm happy with the proportions, I won't need to do that again.

THE RECIPE:

3 hard boiled eggs cut in half lengthwise with yolks separated into a bowl

3t mayonnaise

a few drops sriracha

1T minced cooked bacon

1T minced soft sun-dried tomatoes and a bit more for garnish

2T cilantro paste

1T lime juice

1T finely minced sweet onion

Cracked pepper to taste

pickled jalapeno slices

a few pinches of cumin

Mash the yolks and all but the jalapeno slices, extra sun-dried tomato, and cumin until completely combined.

Carefully divide the filling among the egg whites to fill where the yolk was and to cover the top of the white.

Place jalapeno slices and bits on sun-dried tomato on top and sprinkle a pinch on cumin on each.