the bounty continues

I am really scrambling to use all the green stuff in the garden before it overgrows or goes to seed. So Jim and I are eating pretty healthy these days. Well, okay. Pretty healthy for us. I made a lightly wilted spinach salad, and the dressing does include bacon fat. But not a lot, okay? I wanted to update the classic wilted spinach salad, so I topped it with some nicely grilled chicken, and served the eggs on the side, deviled. Deviled eggs are such an old-fashioned dish that they are getting positively trendy. I will often take them to pot luck suppers, and people devour them.

Julia Child has, in my opinion, the perfect method for hard boiling eggs.  For 4--6 eggs, two quarts of water goes into a fairly tall and narrow pot, along with the eggs. More eggs? More water. Bring the water to a boil, slap on a cover, and take the pot off the heat. Set a timer for 17 minutes, and get a bowl of ice water ready.

letting the eggs cook off the heat eliminates the chance of overcooked eggs

with the green ring of shame around the yolks

next comes the big chill--for 20 minutes

I know I have mentioned before how much I love the farm-fresh eggs I can get at Whole Foods. Well, that's all the eggs I had on hand so I used them. But hard boiled is the one time that crappy old supermarket eggs are actually superior performers. Not that they taste better--but you can peel them. Fresh eggs are a disaster to peel, because the white hasn't lost moisture and structure, and still clings tenaciously to the shell. So I pressed on, knowing my eggs were going to look like they'd been nibbled on by mice.

Once the eggs were chilled, I painstakingly picked away the peel and popped the yolks out into a food mill. If you don't have a food mill, certainly you can just mash up the yolks with a potato masher or a fork. But if you do have a food mill, this is the perfect time to pull it out of the cupboard. It will produce very light, fluffy, and lump-free yolks.

this inexpensive gizmo is perfect for when you want smooth purees

with no skins, seeds, or lumps--it is especially handy with tomatoes

Since I had The Way to Cook out to review Julia's egg cookery, I took a look at her deviled egg recipe. She suggested adding a dollop of butter to the filling for an extra-creamy texture. Fine. I'd give it a try. I had a handful of chives from the garden, so I minced those, and threw them in with the yolks, along with salt, pepper, dijon mustard, and a bit of mayo.

a 30 second stir, and the creamy filling is ready

I put the filling into a disposable piping bag with a star tip,

but there is nothing wrong with just spooning the filling into the eggs,

the way grandma did

pretty deviled eggs with a red bell pepper and chive garnish--

though the whites are a bit chewed up with peeling accidents

 

On to the salad. Fresh little leaves of spinach, which doesn't grow the way I had imagined. Instead of little clumps of spinach we have foot-high stalks festooned with spinach leaves. A little bacon never insulted a fresh spinach leaf, so I fried two strips in little lardons, or strips about a third of an inch wide. I tossed a bone-in, skin-on chicken breast on the grill, and cooked it in about 20 minutes to an internal temp of 160, then let it rest until it was cool enough to handle.

chicken breasts come off the grill tender and juicy when they

are protected by skin and bone

I had a red onion which is a classic addition to spinach salad, but it was pretty sharp, so I decided to cook it for just a minute in the hot dressing. The dressing is simple. Hot bacon fat, white wine vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, and pepper.

wilting the onions for a minute will take away some of the bite

For another little update, I candied a few pecans with melted sugar, a bit of cayenne pepper, and a bit of curry powder. I also had some dried tart cherries on hand, so I tossed in a few of those. Dried cranberries and uncandied pecans would work as well. I had some blue cheese in the fridge as well, which contrasted nicely with the sweet fruit. The final salad came together in minutes.

a little grilled garlic bread and dinner is ready--

I should have put an egg on the plate...