Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs

Deviled Eggs are a mainstay on southern tables.  Picnic tables, weddings, funerals, baby showers, holidays, Sunday church suppers…why, it’s just not a southern feast without them.

Since we, down here in the South, serve these delightful mouthfuls so darned often, and being the saucy southern girl that I am, I simply refuse to limit myself to the standard deviled egg.  You know the one, mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar.  As scrumptious as they are, well, I get bored with the same old thing all the time.  (I’m a bit of a rebel…pun intended…in case you wondered.)

Anyway, since it was Easter just the other day, I made deviled eggs.  Of course.  And since it was a “high holiday” (being defined as such by the fact that it’s one of the four days a year Mr. Saucy and I close our business), I figured I’d wheel out one of my “fancy-dancy” deviled egg recipes.  Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs…and these babies are good!

Here's one right here!

That one just might have a nibble out of it.    Anyway…like all deviled eggs, they are simple to do.  This recipe is one I adapted years and years ago from The Classic Party Fare Cookbook; I’ll get to the recipe in just a second.

First, let me talk about hard cookin’ an egg.  You know, I have tried every single method under the sun for gettin’ the perfect hard-cooked egg.  And sometimes, I swear, those little beasts just don’t want to peel no matter how you hold your mouth just so.  My solution when that happens?  Just let ‘em tear up and be all messy looking; make you up some egg salad and forget it!  But, here’s my method that almost always works perfectly:

Hard Cooking Eggs:

1. Buy your eggs a week before hand.
2. Set them out on the counter the night before you cook ‘em.
3. Put your eggs in a pot big enough to hold all the eggs you are cooking in a single layer on the bottom of the pan.
4. Cover the eggs with water and have one inch of water clearance on the top of the eggs.
5. Cover the pot and bring to a boil.
6. AS SOON AS they start to boil, remove them from the heat and set your timer for 14 minutes.
7. AS SOON AS that buzzer goes off, dip the eggs out of the hot water and straight away into an ice bath you’ve set up in a bowl.

The Ice Bathing Beauties

Now, that's a perfect hard-cooked egg...all golden yellow yolk and none of that green/grey stuff around the edge (a sign of over-cooking).

Alrighty then.  On to the recipe.

Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

25 mins

 

Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs…a fancy version of the old favorite. Stylish, sophisticated, edgy. Just plain good.

Author: The Saucy Southerner, as adapted from The Classic Party Fare Cookbook

Recipe type: Appetizer, Side Dish, Eggs

Serves: 12 with 2 per person

Ingredients

• 12 eggs, hard-cooked, as described above (makes 24 deviled eggs)
• 8 ounces smoked salmon fillets
• ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons crème fraiche (or greek or plain yogurt)
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 3 tsp Dijon mustard
• a couple of sprigs of fresh dill
• Fresh Ground Pepper, to taste (y’all don’t want to salt this…the smoked salmon is salty enough for most.)

Instructions

1. Combine the yolks with the salmon in a food processor fitted with the metal blade, processing just until mixed.
2. Add the crème fraiche, lemon juice, mustard and dill and process again until smooth.
3. Add pepper to taste, then add more lemon juice and salt*.

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1.2.4

That’s all.  Here’s the steps in pictures:

The Ingredients: Smoked Salmon, Crème fraiche, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, dill and pepper

Step 1: Mix the yolks and smoked salmon in the food processor, just until mixed.

Step 2: Add the rest and process until smooth-ish.

Then, you just spoon or, if you’re wanting to be fancy like I did – it being a “high holiday” and all, you can pipe the mixture into the waiting halved eggs.

There you are…all plattered up and dressed with a sprig of dill.

I hope you’ll try these…and try makin’ your own crème fraiche, too.  I showed you how in the previous post.

Also, let me just say…it’s simply not a true southern hostess who doesn’t own at least half a dozen deviled egg platters.  Or, maybe that’s just my love of dishes showin’…

P~