A friend asked me how I choose what recipes to make for this 52 Week Challenge – for awhile, I had about a month’s worth of weeks planned out, but lately I have been cutting it close with my decisions. This week was by far the most I procrastinated on because my head has been elsewhere, but was relieved to realize that this week is also the Easter holiday! Having a holiday to draw inspiration from allows me to narrow my scope a bit and makes me feel like I’m celebrating something through the food I make. I wanted to do an egg-centric dish and landed on eggs Jeannette, which is not exactly an Easter-specific dish, but I figured was close enough. I heard about this dish from TikTok and had it saved among the hundreds of other TikTok recipes I mean to try and forget about, so I’m excited that I finally got around to this one. For those who are not familiar, this dish is basically elevated deviled eggs and is a recipe by Chef Jacques Pépin.
Making the Dish
The recipe calls for a simple and relatively short list of ingredients. I happened to have all of them on hand, so it was nice not to have to do any extra grocery shopping. The two major components are the eggs and the vinaigrette. Similar to deviled eggs, you have to hard-boil them, peel them, split them in half, and take out the yolk. This recipe differs in that you make a yolk “paste” along with a few other ingredients that upgrade the filling, and them you press them back into the egg halves (I appreciated that this step didn’t require neatness). The other huge difference is that you serve them with a vinaigrette which I equate to the mayonnaise component of regular deviled egg mixture. The vinaigrette is super easy to make, especially since it calls for some of the yolk mixture that you make. Frying the eggs in the pan felt wrong but fun, and as long as you leave them for 2-3 minutes, they will develop that lovely browning. I initially tried taking them out of the pan with tongs, but they squeezed the eggs too hard, so I ended up resorting to sliding a spatula underneath each egg and flipping them yolk-side up into an awaiting bowl.
Eating the Dish
I love eggs, so I devoured 4 eggs’ worth in a blink of an eye. The filling had a delightful, savory flavor with the hints of garlic and parsley. The slight crispiness combined with the creamy vinaigrette altogether made for a decadent appetizer. If I had one complaint, it is that the filling is a bit drier since it’s more of a paste than a smooth, creamy yolk mixture.
Summary
I can’t think of an occasion when I would want to make these again. They require just a bit more attention and effort than I would like for an appetizer, unless it is for a small potluck brunch or dinner (I’d prefer not to have to peel so many eggs). If you’re looking for a fancy way to spruce up your meal or want to try something new, consider giving these a try!