Avocado Deviled Eggs, Redux: Avocado & Bacon

Contains:  Eggs, nightshade.  Is:  An appetizer.

 I brought these to a recent gathering.  You can always use hotter ground pepper than I did, but I was considering the audience.  (You could also experiment with a hot or smoky ground paprika.)

I made avocado deviled eggs some years back, without bacon, but I prefer this recipe to that (and you can always ditch the bacon, if serving for vegetarians, or by preference – this one, IMHO, is still better than the old).  Plus this new variant of an old recipe has a few notes appended!

Post most COVID restrictions in my area, I forgot to take photos, being so glad to see friends in the flesh again.  I apologize, but visualize stuffed eggs, lightly greened, with a sliver of bacon sticking up, and bits of cilantro/coriander leaf dribbled around. Photos instead are of raw ingredients… 

NOTE:  the eggs can be cooked and peeled the day before.  But the deviled stuffing should happen the day you plan to serve. 

NOTE:  With older eggs, you may discover that some eggs will float to the top of your pan’s water.  I discard those.  If they slightly rise, they are fine.  If they roll around on the bottom of the pan, they were probably just laid, and generally will not peel as easily. 

NOTE:  The best way to make sure your yolks are centered is to use a utensil (spoon or whatever) and move the eggs around in the water just before simmering water reaches a boil.   The egg is nowhere near solidified at this point, and the yolks will distribute themselves appropriately – I’ll remark I was multitasking that day, and failed to do so with one batch of my eggs….

NOTE:  The water is salted because this helps prevent eggs with hairline cracks from bursting their guts out all over the place.  Osmotic pressure is more equalized.  It will not affect the taste of eggs to do this.  I have heard that baking soda also has the same effect, but I’ve yet to experiment.  Mind you, some eggs will “blow” anyway, but you will have a lot less doing this.  I have a photo somewhere I may share that shows a boiling cracked egg with its innards staying… in. 

NOTE:  Peeling eggs – I’ve done this more with quail eggs than chicken eggs, but the idea is to take the finished boiled eggs and plunge them into cold water in a jar, then close the jar and shake it around until shells begin to crack.  Keeping the eggs in some sort of cold or tepid water, you can readily peel the shells off, because the water will come into the interface between shell and egg proper, to assist you.  . 

NOTE:  I always plan on buying extra avocadoes when I am planning a specific dish with them.  One never quite knows what one will find inside.  I open them up in order of perceived ripeness until I find one not browned inside, or too hard to work with.  (I lucked out on this recipe – the first one was perfect, and I can always find something for the rest! )

NOTE:  the lime juice will both provide a bright taste and also help keep the avocado from discoloring, at least for several hours.

Avocado and Bacon Deviled Eggs

• 8 hard-boiled eggs. (I place in cold salted water, bring to a boil for 4-5 minutes, turn off heat and let them sit for about 12 more minutes in the hot water.)
• 1 ripe avocado, pitted and peeled.
• Juice of 1/3 to ½ lime.
• 1 tablespoon rinsed and drained capers. (Finely diced unsweetened dill pickle will also work)
• 1-2 teaspoons chili powder. (Ground Ancho or Aleppo is also good for a mild deviled egg, but you can also blend in some hotter ground pepper if desired). 
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• 2.5 strips of bacon, cooked until crispy (but not burnt). Break up into fragments.  Allow to cool, maybe 5 or so minutes.
• Fresh cilantro, stems chopped into quarter to half inch segments, and leaves coarsely chopped, kept separate.

Cook and peel the eggs, then slice them in half longitudinally.  Drop the yolks into a mixing bowl, and arrange the whites on your serving dish. 

Into the yolks, add the avocado, chopped. 

Add the lime juice, capers, chili or ground pepper powder, salt and pepper, and cilantro stems.  Mix with a fork or spoon.  You can mix this as smoothly as you prefer. Should you wish very smooth, you can always add the cooked yolks, avocado, chili powder, salt and pepper to a small food processor and pulse until very smooth, then add the capers and cilantro stems.  I am fond of the “heterogenous texture” of most of my foods, so I did not do that. 

Now, add in most of the bacon fragments, reserving a tiny piece to be inserted into each deviled egg at the end.  Stir gently until incorporated.  Taste to see if the seasonings should be modified, and add more of what is lacking until this tastes right to you. 

Stuff the eggs.  I use a spoon and clean fingers.   You could use a pastry piping bag (or cut a hole in a zip-loc bag corner) and pipe in the stuffing that way, but that probably works best on a more homogeneous mixture than I prefer to use. 

Poke a small fragment of reserved bacon into the top of each deviled egg half, then sprinkle the cilantro leaves over the top.   Serve within about 3 hours, keeping chill until serving.  

Final thoughts – I added a few quail eggs into this recipe.  Obviously, I hope, one shouldn’t plan on just stuffing a whole batch of quail eggs – I don’t want to count how many that would require!  – but to hard boil these, I also start with cold salted water, let them come to a boil for 2-3 minutes, and then let them sit in the hot water with the cooktop turned off, for 5-6 more minutes. Their yolks ended up with the other yolks.

And, we are shared at – 

• Fiesta Friday, with co-host Jhuls @ The Not So Creative Cook.
• Full Plate Thursday. 
• What’s for Dinner:  Sunday Link-Up.
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A front yard lovely willow-family bush (or short tree). Do NOT plant near water sources especially if coming into your home!