When my daughter was small, she really wanted chickens. Luckily our house doesn’t meet the Los Angeles code requirements. Quite frankly, raising chickens is not my thing, but some of our friends and family have beautiful chickens. This week I had the fortune to receive a dozen freshly laid eggs. They are beautiful and come in different sizes and colors. My favorites are the small eggs, courtesy of Squinkles McCall, a Black Silkie bantam. They make the perfect dainty bite-sized Deviled Egg.
Squinkles Mc Call is a Black Silkie Bantam, they are sweet and have five toes instead of four, and they’re notoriously hard to sex.
There are so many delicious versions of deviled eggs. But right now I’m favoring the flavors of the Middle East. My daughter and I are enjoying homemade lunches of pita, stuffed with chicken, thinly sliced cucumbers, pepperoncini and drizzled with a blend of lemon, tahini and garlic spread.
I wanted to bring these flavors to my deviled egg. The kicker is sprinkling the eggs with Sumac. It gives them a punch of color and a tangy citrus flavor. If you’re not familiar with Sumac, it is very popular in Middle Eastern dishes. It comes from red berries of the Sumac bush which are dried and ground into coarse powder. It is delicious on cucumber salad, grilled chicken, bread and amazing in a vinaigrette.
Deviled Eggs
Ingredients
4 eggs
1 tsp tahini
2 tsp garlic spread (Trader Joe’s sells a great one)
1/2 teaspoon Colman’s english mustard
1/2 lemon
6-8 pieces sliced peperoncini, chopped – more for garnish
sumac powder
Instructions
Place eggs in saucepan with cold water. Bring to a boil. Cover and turn off heat. Let eggs sit in water for 12 minutes.
While eggs are cooking, mix tahini, garlic spread, mustard, peperoncini.
When eggs are cooked for 12 minutes, rinse in cold water and peel.
Cut the eggs in half and add yolk to the tahini mixture. Add some lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.
Top eggs with liberal sprinkling of sumac and slice of peperoncini.
Notes
If your egg mixture is too thick you can thin it out with a little lemon juice, water or mayo.
