It’s Memorial Day weekend and that means deviled egg season is upon us.

The hardest thing about making deviled eggs is peeling hard-boiled eggs. If you make Deviled Eggs, chances are you were the person who brought Pocky-marked Deviled Eggs to the table.

Since peeling hard-boiled eggs is such a problem, I’ve tried every technique I’ve ever heard of or read about in search of a reliable method. A few years ago I thought I had the answer when my friend Kirsten gave me some advice that worked really well; break the bottom of the egg and peel them while very hot. That works most of the time, but not always.

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The classic way to cook eggs is to start with cold eggs and cold water. But after a particularly disastrous exfoliation experience, I started my experiments again. I wanted to see what would happen if I boiled water and put cold eggs in boiling water. I was hoping that the temperature shock would prevent the egg white from binding to the inner membrane of the shell. I’m no food scientist, but I thought it was worth a try.

I tried it and it worked, and by now I’ve tried it many, many times and switched to boiling water boiled egg. It can also be an ice bath to re-shock the eggs. I don’t know exactly why, but I know it works!

I make them when I want to make an almost runny egg for avocado toast or any other time a soft-yolk egg is needed. And each time I was rewarded with a shell that almost slid off leaving a perfectly unblemished egg. I figured if it worked for runny jam eggs it would work for hard boiled eggs and it did.

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Once you have the perfect hard-boiled and peeled eggs, you’re ready to make deviled eggs.

Maybe you already have your favorite recipe and if so, make it. If you’re looking for a new recipe or don’t have one, here’s my favorite deviled egg recipe. I call them Straight-Up Deviled Eggs because they are plain and simple and appeal to everyone.

I don’t add a lot of high flavor ingredients, no pickles or onions. They are made creamy and spicy with real mayonnaise, butter, dijon mustard, lemon zest and a little juice, and simply seasoned with a pinch of garlic powder and Tabasco.

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Next is the cut. I like to cut eggs down the middle. This makes them easier to fill and easier to get up. You may have to cut a piece off the bottom to secure them, but they never slip and slide like you do when you cut them for a long time.

The filling is easy enough to mix – just use a fork to make sure everything is smooth and well combined. I do this off and on for about 5 minutes to get all the little things smooth.

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I have a friend who runs the egg yolks through a strainer before adding the other ingredients to make sure there are no lumps or lumps in the mixture. If you’re a perfectionist, you can do that too, but I just use a fork. And, don’t worry if bits of yolk stick to the whites, you’ll cover that when you fill the eggs.

Finally, you are ready to fill the eggs. You can fill them with a small spoon, a pastry bag and tip, or a resealable plastic bag.

For me, using a pastry bag or resealable plastic bag to fill the eggs is faster and I think they look a little smoother. If you use a piping bag and a decorating tip, you can make them swirly and fancy like cake frosting.

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Putting the filling in a pastry bag or plastic bag can be messy and if you’re not careful, you can get it all over the bag – wasting the filling and making the twist a mess.

I fold the bag and in this case I use a quart freezer bag because I only have about 1 cup of filling. Using a rubber spatula, I take a large scoop and “drop” it into the center of the coffee cup. Then I hold the cup by the handle and shake it gently so that the egg filling slides to the bottom. I repeated this procedure three times until the container was empty and the filling was at the bottom of the bag. I removed the bag, twisted it until all the filling was concentrated on one side, cut off the top and Viola! homemade pastry bag.

STRAIGHT ROLLED EGGS

These deviled eggs make a great appetizer or snack. Make them for an Easter meal and all summer long – I especially love putting them in a picnic basket on the beach. No matter when or how you serve them, let them cool to room temperature before serving, otherwise the filling will be a little hard instead of creamy.

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Makes 24 eggs

1 dozen large eggs

1/3 cup Hellmann’s mayonnaise

¼ cup strong Dijon mustard

5 tablespoons of unsalted butter, softened

Zest of ½ lemon

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1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice

A pinch of garlic powder

2-4 shakes of Tabasco

Sea salt to taste

Smoked paprika or minced fresh chives for decoration

1. Place the eggs in a large pot of boiling water. Leave the heat high and let the eggs cook for 12-14 minutes depending on how big they are. If you add another test egg, you can peel it and slice it for 12 minutes to see if you like the level of hard-boiled. Place the eggs in a bowl of ice water when done.
2. Carefully peel the eggs, keeping the whites in contact. One by one, break and peel under running room temperature water until all the eggs are peeled.
3. Cut in half crosswise and remove the yolks. Place the egg whites on a plate or egg tray.
4. Break and mash the yolks with a fork until all large pieces are broken and smooth. If you want to make sure there are no lumps, you can push the egg yolks through a fine sieve.
5. Add mayonnaise, mustard, butter, lemon zest and juice, garlic powder and Tabasco. Mix well. Taste and season with a pinch of sea salt. All mixes are salty, so you won’t need to add much salt.
6. Put the yolk mixture in a pastry bag or use a small spoon to fill the egg white “boats” with the deviled egg mixture.

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