It's Easter weekend and hard boiled eggs are everywhere so we decided to share the following recipe from our latest book, Maximum Flavor. It's slightly modified, we left out the pepper jelly recipe and encourage you to use your favorite red pepper jelly instead. You can brine the eggs or not as you wish, it could be considered a different and more delicious technique for coloring Easter eggs, though you won't get sparkly pastel colors. Even eliminating these two steps these are darned good eggs. The recipe is worth trying for the glazed bacon alone.
Bacon and Deviled Eggs
Makes 24
Classic deviled eggs are always a favorite. We’ve come to prefer the technique of steaming eggs to hard cook them, because it gives very consistent results with the added benefit of making the eggs easier to peel—you can say goodbye forever to that green tinge around the yolk and also to whites that are pitted and unattractive to set out as deviled eggs. A tea brine bath seasons the eggs after they’re cooked and makes them look beautiful and festive. The glazed bacon is crisp, sweet, spicy, and the perfect accent to the creamy eggs. While you can use your favorite store bought pepper jam, we encourage you to try the recipe below. It’s worth the extra effort, and you will find it useful for a wide variety of dishes once you have it in your pantry.
12 large eggs
4 cups/ 907 grams cranberry juice
½ ounce/ 15 grams Lapsang Souchong tea (about 6 teabags)
3 teaspoons/ 18 grams fine sea salt
½ cup/ 110 grams Dukes or other mayonnaise
1 tablespoon/ 14 grams Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon/ 14 grams sweet pickle juice
6 slices of bacon
¼ cup/ 85 grams red pepper jelly
6 teaspoons/ 43 grams red pepper jelly
Put 2 inches of water in a medium pot and set it over high heat. Bring the water to a boil. Put the cold eggs into a steamer basket and suspend them over the boiling water. Cover the pot and steam the eggs for 14 minutes. Transfer them to an ice bath and let cool for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine the cranberry juice, Lapsang Souchong tea, and salt in a large bowl, stirring until the salt is dissolved. Use the back of a spoon to uniformly crack the eggshells all over without piercing the eggs or removing any of the shell. Put the cracked eggs into the brine and put another bowl on top of the eggs to keep them submerged. Refrigerate the eggs for 48 hours.
After 48 hours, take the eggs out of the brine and peel them, discarding the shells. Cut each egg in half vertically. Remove the yolks and set the whites aside. Put the egg yolks, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and pickle juice into a small food processor and puree until smooth. Scoop the deviled egg mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip and put the bag in the refrigerator.
Preheat the oven to 350°F/176°C.
Lay the bacon slices on a cutting board. Brush the top of the bacon with some of the 1/4 cup/85 grams pepper jelly and then lay the slices on an oven rack set over a foil-lined sheet pan. Put the bacon into the oven and cook for 15 minutes until the bacon is just crispy and glazed. Remove the bacon from the oven, brush both sides of the bacon with the jam, and put it back in the oven for 3 more minutes. Remove the bacon from the oven and let cool. Cut each slice of bacon into 4 pieces so that you have 1 piece for each deviled egg.
Put the egg whites on a cutting board or other flat work surface. Spoon ¼ teaspoon of the remaining pepper jam into the bottom of the each egg white. Pipe a rosette of about a tablespoon of the egg yolk mixture on top of the jelly. Top with a slice of bacon. Arrange the deviled eggs on a cutting board or platter to serve.
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