Wherein A Cook & A Geek Dresses Up an Egg for Halloween

Or beeting off your huevos in time for the holidays

 

So I guess this is a thinly veiled attempt at making some food seasonal given the upcoming spooky holiday. Because shortcuts and multi purposing are beautiful things.

It’s actually a bit of a coincidence really. Dad came back and brought home some beautiful fresh beets because he wanted to have some of these naturally dyed beauties after seeing some in the Amish country on his most recent excursion. I’ve actually seen these before but I’ve never realized they were a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition before my dad told me he saw these there.

The more you know I guess!

Strangely enough, the great majority of the recipes involved online usually use canned beets, but I was able to find one that used fresh beets on Maria’s Farm House Country Kitchen.

The recipe called for some pretty straightforward ingredients beyond the beets, and a well stocked pantry should have a fair amount of the ingredients. The most exotic things were the cloves and possibly the apple cider vinegar, which are both good things to have on hand.

In addition to the aforementioned ingredients you need some sugar, a stick of cinnamon, some beets, and of course eggs. While Maria’s recipe calls for one beet for every egg, I thought that I could squeeze in a few more eggs per beet. I actually used five eggs for three beets.

The first thing to do is to hard-boil the eggs. Place them in a pot with a tight fitting lid.

Cover with cold water, with  enough water to cover the eggs by an inch.

By the way, slightly older eggs work better for this application.

Bring it to a rolling boil in a pot with a lid. When boiling, cover it up, remove from heat, and let sit for about twenty minutes before removing and placing them in cold water. Let them rest in the cold water for a few minutes before peeling

Then, completely forget to take pictures of peeling beets, placing them into a pot, covering with them in water and boiling them. Peeling beets is messy business and lots of paper towels were sacrificed.

Boil the beets for twenty minutes, then remove from the pot.

I found I had just enough juice for the next part of the step, so if you can remove the beets, just keep it in the pot. But you should have about a half cup of the stuff for every egg you’re using.

Add in the cloves, sugar, vinegar, salt and cinnamon stick. Heat and stir until sugar is dissolved.

Pour into clean jars or a bowl.

Then add eggs (splitting if necessary) then slice up the beets and stick them in as well.

It is a nice snug fit. Let sit overnight at least, before digging in. Use by the fourth day, or preferably the third.

And voila, you have strange purple monster eggs!

So pretty!

After a night, we see that the color has penetrated a decent amount. More days, more penetration.

This is plenty pretty as it is though.

Some good uses include salads or just as a snack. It actually found some pretty good use with some Vietnamese noodle soup, in this case mì, which in this case features pork ribs and shrimp balls. Probably would not work with Phở, but then again it just might!

Pickled Red Beet Eggs, adapted from Maria’s Farm Country Kitchen

Ingredients:

3 large red beets
5 eggs
1/4  cup sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
3 cloves
1 stick cinnamon
A three fingered pinch of salt
(Optional) A diced shallot

Directions:

1. Place eggs in a small pot, covered with over an inch of water. Bring to boil, cover with lid, then remove from heat for 20 minutes. After letting the eggs sit, place into a bowl of cold water, or even ice water, then peel.
2. While eggs are coming to a boil and resting (keep an eye on it!) trim the the red beets and cover with water, and place a lit on it. Bring to a boil and continue cooking for about 20 minutes, then remove from heat.
3. Remove the beets from the now purple dyed water, then add to the pot the remaining ingredients except for the eggs and shallot if using. Place back on high heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
4. Into some jars or a large bowl, pour in this liquid and the cinnamon stick. Add the eggs and shallot if using, then slice up the beets and add those too.
5. Store in refrigerator at least overnight before serving. Use however you would use a slightly sweet and sour hard boiled egg!