How to eat all those hard-boiled Easter eggs

With the spring holidays in full bloom this weekend and the Easter holiday generally providing an excess, it’s time to consider one of the culinary world’s most versatile utility players: the hard-boiled egg.

When cooked and peeled to perfection, the egg can play a pivotal role in a multitude of spring dishes, from brunch noshes and salads to appetizers and dinner entrées.

Chef Liza Hinman of The Spinster Sisters uses more than 1,000 eggs each week at the Santa Rosa restaurant, which serves brunch on weekends, plus breakfast, lunch and dinner almost every day.

At the South A Street restaurant, Hinman has experimented with several methods for making sure the yolk and white are cooked properly while ensuring a relatively smooth removal of the shell.

Here are our top 10 ways to use a hard-boiled egg that’s been cooked and peeled to perfection. What are you waiting for? Get cracking!

1) The deviled egg is a classic spring picnic food and has recently become trendy at restaurants as a comfort-food appetizer. At The Spinster Sisters, Hinman gives it an Asian twist by adding bacon and kimchi, a flavor combination inspired by the Bacon Kimchi-Fried Rice made by Momofuku Chef David Chang of New York.

If you want the traditional deviled egg, she said, just add paprika and salt to the mayonnaise and yolk.

“The key is to get the yolk smooth enough with the mayonnaise and a little water,” she said. “It’s best to blend them in a food processor.”

2) Like the chopped egg on a classic smoked salmon plate, chopped or “sieved” eggs can add flavor to a simple spring salad of greens and grilled asparagus.

To sieve a hard-boiled egg, separate the yolk from the white and push each through the largest hole in a box grater or a mesh strainer. Then put it on top of some grilled, marinated asparagus with a dollop of green garlic aioli.

“It’s a great dish to serve for brunch,” Hinman said. “The sieved egg is pretty, and it adds protein to the asparagus.”

3) Egg Salad on toast is hard to beat, especially when the toast is made by an artisan bakery like Della Fattoria in Petaluma. In her new cookbook, “Della Fattoria Bread,” founder Kathleen Weber has a recipe for a simple egg salad, made with mayonnaise, mustard, salt and pepper, that is popular among patrons of her downtown cafe.

4) Potato salad studded with hard-boiled eggs is an all-American classic. To serve it as appetizer, try roasting some small, red-potato halves, then top with your favorite recipe for potato-egg salad.

5) Legend has it that the Cobb Salad was first created at the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood by its owner, who was looking in his restaurant’s kitchen for a snack. Bob Cobb rustled up a head of lettuce, an avocado, tomatoes, cold chicken, a hard-boiled egg, cheese and French dressing, then added some crisp bacon. At The Spinster Sisters, Hinman gives her signature Kale Salad a Cobb-y twist by adding eggs, bacon, blue cheese and cherry tomatoes during the summer.

6) Salade Nicoise is the French version of the Cobb Salad, served in all the humble bistros of France. It is made with oil-cured tuna, olives, anchovies, green beans, tomatoes, and hard-cooked eggs. (See recipe below.)

7) Chopped Salad is another salad that lends itself to hard-boiled eggs. You can make it with any chopped, fresh vegetable that is in season, which means sugar snap peas. spring onions and baby carrots this time of year. For a recipe, see “Cooking for Comfort” by former New York Times food columnist Marian Burros.

8) Kay Baumhefner of the Come Home to Cooking School in Petaluma likes to take a toasted baguette and lay slices of egg along one side, topped with ham or prosciutto or bacon, then put some spring strawberry jam on the other side. “It’s a done deal,” she said. “The saltiness is really good with the sweetness.”

9) Instead of mashing up the yolks for deviled eggs, Baumhefner simply cuts the eggs in half, then adds a dollop of green olive tapenade or aioli next to the yolk.

10) Sometimes less is more. With a stash of hard-boiled eggs in the fridge, you always have a perfect ready-to-eat meal. Take them as a snack in your lunchbox or pack them up in a picnic basket as part of an al fresco feast. Don’t forget the salt and pepper.

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The following recipes are from Chef Liza Hinman of The Spinster Sisters in Santa Rosa. You can find kimchi at Asian markets.

The Spinster Sister’s Kimchi Bacon Deviled Egg

Makes 24 pieces

1 dozen hard-boiled eggs, peeled and halved (see note below)

4 slices bacon

½ cups cabbage kimchi with liquid (store-bought or homemade)

¾ cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons ice water

- Salt and pepper

Gently remove the yolks from the whites of the eggs and place into the bowl of a food processor. Lay out the whites on a tray or plate and refrigerate.

Chop the bacon into small pieces and cook in a pan over medium flame until crispy. Drain and retain the bacon fat. Cool the chopped bacon.

Separate the kimchi from the liquid, retaining the juice for later, and chop.

Add 1 tablespoons of the bacon fat, half of the chopped kimchi, the juice from the kimchi, a quarter of the chopped bacon, and the mayonnaise to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until mostly smooth. Add the water and pulse again 4 to 5 times, scrapping down the sides as necessary, until silky and smooth. Check the texture of the egg yolks- add more mayonaise if it seems too dry, add more water if it seems too thick or oily. Taste and season with salt and pepper as necessary. Do not add too much bacon fat or the mixture will get too firm.

Remove the egg whites from the fridge. Transfer the yolk mixture into a large Ziploc bag or a pastry bag with a round tip. Cut the bottom corner of the Ziploc, and squeeze the mixture into each egg, filling just over the edge of the yolk hole. Top each egg with a pinch of the remaining kimchi and sprinkle the bacon over each egg. Eggs will hold up to two days without the toppings in the fridge.

Note: Wipe clean your knife between eggs to keep the whites looking neat.

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Grilled Asparagus with Sieved Egg

Serves 4 to 6

2 bunches organic asparagus

- Canola oil, for drizzling

2 cups arugula

1 bunch frisee

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons canola oil

¼ teaspoon lemon zest

- Salt and pepper, to taste

3 hard-boiled eggs

¼ cup herb aioli (see recipe below)

2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled

2 slices of day old bread

1 tablespoon olive oil

Pre-heat a grill or grill pan, and oven to 375 degrees.

Snap off the woody ends of the asparagus. Drizzle with canola oil, season with a pinch of salt, and place onto the grill or into the oven. Roast or grill until just tender and remove to a plate to cool - 2 to 4 minutes.

In a bowl whisk together lemon juice, the two oils, lemon zest, a pinch of salt and pepper. Set aside.

Split the hard-boiled eggs into white and yolk and press each separately through a mesh strainer, the small holes of a box grater, or finely chop. Spread each over a paper towel on a plate to dry slightly, keeping the yellow and white separate.

Cut the crust off the bread, and cut the bread into small cubes. Toss with a tablespoon of olive oil, place on a cookie tray and bake until golden. Remove and cool.

To plate the dish: Toss the asparagus with a tablespoon of the lemon viniagrette. Mix the frisee and arugula together in a bowl, drizzle with the lemon vinaigrette to coat, and place on a large platter. Arrange the asparagus over the greens, and sprinkle the egg white and yolk in equal amounts over the top. Add the croutons over the egg. On the side of the platter, place a large dollop of the aioli-and pass any additional in a bowl along with the platter.

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Aioli

Makes about 1½ cups

2 cloves of garlic, peeled

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon lemon zest

2 tablespoons lemon juice

½ cup olive oil

½ cup canola oil

½ teaspoon ice water

2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped

1 tablespoons tarragon, finely chopped

1 tablespoons chives, finely chopped

1 tablespoons chervil, finely chopped

Finely chop or mash the garlic clove with the salt. Place into a mixing bowl or food processor. Add the egg yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice and whisk or process together. Slowly incorporate the two oils, adding a few drops of cold water if the mixture gets too thick. Once the oil is incorporated, add the fresh herbs and mix well. Check the salt and lemon juice- add more if necessary. Refrigerate until needed.

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This recipe is from “30-Minute Paleo Meals,” by Melissa Petitto, registered dietician. “Though traditional Nicoise salad uses canned tuna, I prefer mine with fresh seared tuna,” she writes. “It tastes better and adds elegance to the presentation.”

Fresh Tuna Nicoise Salad

Makes 4 servings

2 cups French beans, trimmed

2 organic free-range eggs

1 pound sushi-grade tuna steak

1 teaspoon sea salt, divided

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided

1 tablespoon olive oil

1½ cups grape tomatoes, halved

1 red onion, thinly sliced

¼ cup Nicoise (or any black olive)

2 tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed

1 pound mixed baby greens

For the dressing:

- Juice of 3 lemons

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

¼ teaspoon sea salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup olive oil

Bring a pot of water with a steamer insert to a boil. Once the water is boiling, add the beans to the steamer, cover and steam until the beans turn bright green, about 4 minutes.

While the beans are steaming, prepare a bowl of ice water. Once the beans are done, transfer them to the ice water bath to stop the cooking. Drain the beans and set aside.

In a small saucepan, place the eggs in the bottom, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil. Boil for 7 minutes. Drain and cover with ice water for 2 minutes. Drain again, peel, slice thinly, and season with a little salt and pepper. Set aside.

To cook the tuna, season both sides with ½ teaspoon each salt and pepper.

Heat the oil in a saute pan over high heat. Add the seasoned tuna and sear for 2-3 minutes per side, or until cooked to your desired doneness. Transfer to a cutting board and let sit for 2 minutes before slicing. Slice the tuna thinly against the grain.

To make the dressing, whisk together the lemon juice, Dijon, salt and pepper. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil and whisk until well combined.

To prepare the salads, divide the lettuce among four plates, then continue with the French beans, tomatoes, onion, olives and capers. Top with the sliced egg and sliced tuna and drizzle with the vinaigrette.

Staff writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com

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How to cook a hard-boiled egg

At The Spinster Sisters, Chef Liza Hinman and her staff used to cook hard-boiled eggs the traditional way, salting the water (to help the shell release upon peeling), bringing the water to a boil, then putting the eggs in the water and turning off the heat. The eggs sit for 9 minutes in the hot water before being plunged into an ice bath.

“The cold water stops the cooking and gives a final firmness to the white,” Hinman said. “You need to let them sit for a good half hour before peeling.”

If you’re making deviled eggs, it also helps to stir the simmering water during the first few minutes, in order to keep the yolks in the center of the egg as it hardens. That’s a trick Hinman learned from former Santi chef Franco Dunn.

More recently, however, Hinman started steaming the eggs, a method that she read about in the blog, Serious Eats: The Food Lab. (seriouseats.com/the-food-lab)

“The steaming seems to be a little more foolproof,” she said. “At home, you can use a big stock pot with a steamer basket.”

Step 1: Start with good-quality, pastured eggs that are still cold from the fridge. If you’re using very fresh eggs from a farmer or your backyard, let them sit in the fridge for a week; they’ll be easier to peel. (Most grocery store eggs are already about a week old.)

Step 2: To cook, add a few inches of water to your stock pot and bring it to a rolling boil.

Step 3: Turn down the heat until the water comes to a simmer.

Step 4: Put the eggs in the steaming basket and lower it gently into the pan.

Step 5: Put the lid on the pan and let eggs steam for 12 minutes.

Step 6: After steaming, put the eggs directly into an ice bath. (You can gently crack the eggs beforehand to let the water seep between the shell and the membrane, for easier peeling.)

Step 7: Gently crack the egg at both ends, to release pressure, then peel. If the shell doesn’t cooperate, run the egg under cold water.