Do you have an immersion blender? I make Serious Eats Kenji’s recipe for Caesar dressing, minus the anchovies, delicious and easy. I use grape seed oil and olive oil. Uses egg yolks, no whites … I always make a double recipe. Has garlic and lemon juice but you could omit the garlic if you didn’t want it.
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Yes, I have an immersion blender and can try that version when I buy more oil – only olive oil in my cupboard now. I made Ottolenghi’s mayo successfully once and it seemed easy at the time. So this failure surprised me.
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It’s easier to separate the yolks when eggs are cold. When I gather the rest of the ingredients, I put them in a different bowl because you don’t want to add lemon juice to the yolks too soon. I add the other ingredients all at once to yolks and immediately start with immersion blender. I already have the grape seed oil measured out and ready to go. I buy the grape seed oil from Trader Joe. After, you whisk in olive oil. Mine lasts longer than he says it does.
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That NYT article says " Topping hard-boiled eggs with fiery condiments dates back to ancient Rome (and gave deviled eggs their name)" conflating two issues:
- The origin of the dish, and
- The origin of the name
You see the claim repeated all over the Interwebs that the dish goes back to Ancient Rome. All roads in this case appear to lead not to Rome but to a History Channel piece in 2014 by Laura Schumm. That piece appears to not have been maintained (some “History Channel”). But I did dig around in my copy of Apicius and found this, the last entry in his Luxury Dishes (7.17.3):
in ouis apalis: piper ligusticum nucleos infusos; suffendes mel acetum, liquamine temperabis.
Google found it untranslatable, but ChatGPT offered this: "“Infuse Ligusticum seeds in a pipe; mix with honey, vinegar, and fish sauce to taste.”
The English translation in my book reads “sauce for soft-boiled eggs: pepper, lovage, soaked pine nuts; pour on honey, vinegar, flavor with liquamen”. (liquamen is possibly the same as garum, allied to the fish sauces of today or to colatura.)
There’s clearly a lot going on here between a literal translation and a cooking interpretation.
In any case, a sauce poured over eggs is not deviling them. That devilish term, according to my “Oxford Companion to Food and Drink” arose as a descriptor of spicy foods, in general, in the late 1700s. When stuffing eggs, as opposed to saucing them, appears to have become common is less clearcut. There are Internet claims that the step occurred in Spain in the 1500s, but I haven’t been able to confirm or rebut. In Artusi’s 1891 book (“Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well”) there are two recipes for “stuffed eggs” we’d clearly identify as deviled eggs today.
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Not going to dispute any of that…just wondering how “spicy/hot” the pepper (piper) would have made the resulting dish, given that pepper would have been the thing added for heat in this time period? I always got the impression that deviled dishes were made “hot” to help preserve them (plus whatever acid elements). But, that might also be all the rosé I am preserving myself with, currently.
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You’re not disputing, only confirming my sense that while it makes good copy to say that “deviled eggs go back to Rome”, the reality might be that while there were sauced eggs in the past, stuffed eggs were what led to our present deviled eggs.
Some random comments:
- I don’t think of deviled eggs as being particularly spicy, but the “devil” term seems to be English in origin and their mmv.
- I did a lot of Ancient Roman cookery in 2009 (closer to Indian food than modern Italian) and the “recipes” from back then are vague enough that you can up the heat coefficient, not just with black pepper but also very sharp herbs and cheeses, quite a bit.
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Those tulip eggs are embarrassingly stunning. I’m not sure I could serve them with a straight face, but they are absolutely joyous.
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This popped up on IG today.
https://www.williams-sonoma.com/m/pages/williams-sonoma/get-inspired/deviled-eggs-a-dozen-way/
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I was going to make my regular old deviled eggs today, now I have choices! The gochujang ones look intriguing.
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I made the eggs from Once Upon A Chef website. The unusual aspect for me was adding cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and sugar along with the mayo, mustard, salt, pepper and a pinch of cayenne. My herbs were chives. I was so hungry when I ate these I’m not sure if these are what I would want to make for company or not. I ate them right away. Would like to try again and give them some time for flavors to meld a bit.
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I’d leave out the sugar, but otherwise the use of Worcestershire or cider vinegar for some depth and acid doesn’t surprise me.
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Today I made Alexandra Stafford’s deviled eggs. Most of the ingredients I usually have on hand: egg, mayo, dijon ( had stone ground), S&P, pickle juice and paprika. At first I didn’t notice what kind of pickle juice she used so I made half dill and half sweet (she used dill). Both were fine, nothing earth-shaking added. I think my mother added sweet pickle juice when I was young, possibly with some finely chopped sweet pickle.
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I stored a couple of hard cooked eggs in the leftover liquid from some bread & butter pickles for a couple of weeks. They were surprisingly good.
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With thanks to @ fooddabbler for the inspo, I made Deviled Eggs Nicoise today.
4 HB eggs, the yolks mashed with mayo and folded in with:
1/4 can good tuna in oil
A few diced cherry tomatoes
A few diced kalamata olives
Salt
Pepper
Served with a drizzle of vinaigrette.
Good stuff! Warrants making again tomorrow. 
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Looks and sounds wonderful!!
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I made Trisha Yearwood’s version from Food Network. Very simple, mayo, pickle relish, mustard, S&P. Kind of blah, perfectly edible. Needed a bit more mustard or pickle juice to zip it up a bit.
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Ours are stupid easy and delicious. Mayo + kiss of curry powder. Shower of chives if you must.
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well, uhmmm, errr . . . deviled eggs are really good any-which-way.
obviously “dressing up” with crab / lobster / lox / anchovies / etc. is - ala Emeril - only going to BAM! kick it up a notch…
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The leftovers from two trays of DEs I took to a gathering yesterday. What (sadly) looks like caterpillar droppings
is fermented black garlic from Trader Joe’s. The rest was curry powder, shallot, mustard powder, Kewpie and regular mayo.
These will become egg salad. But there’s always some yolk stuffing that won’t fit into the whites. I just remembered the delicious vinaigrette Jacques Pepin created with cooked yolks for his Les Oeufs Jeannette recipe. Doing that right now, lest I forget. Damn the cholesterol, full speed ahead!
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