I never used to be into eggs. I also never ate a hard boiled egg on purpose (to my recollection) until about a year ago. The chalky cooked yolks never spoke to me as appetizing. Matthew is pretty much obsessed with them (so much so that I've coined the hashtag #putaneggonit in his honor because he puts an egg on... everything). I slowly worked my way from scrambled eggs to fried eggs and now I'm obsessed with poached eggs. I figured it's now a good time to try making deviled eggs for the first time ever. I come from a Southern family, but somehow I made it 30 years without having made, and having eaten very few, deviled eggs.

I'm not a big fan of plain 'ol mustard and mayo versions, so when I came across a recipe for bacon deviled eggs by The Green Table in the Chelsea Market Cookbook my sister and her husband gifted to us for Christmas, I was ready to dive into my first deviled egg venture.

The hardest part about this was that we had never hard boiled eggs... ever. Again, I don't know how we made it this far in life and cooking without hard boiling an egg. It's actually kind of tough, but the instructions from The Green Table were super helpful, so I will share them!

Use eggs that are at least 1 week old (opposite of poaching eggs, which work best when super fresh). It's hard to know how old your eggs are when you don't buy them directly from a farm, but the older the eggs, the more liquid that has evaporated and the easier they will peel.
Put eggs in a single layer in a large saucepan, cover with cold water by 1/4" and bring to a boil over medium heat.
Reduce the heat and simmer briskly for 2 minutes.
Here's the trick I wouldn't have thought: Remove from heat and cover for 12 minutes.
Drain eggs and rinse with cold water. Submerge in an ice bath for 10 minutes to cool completely.
Rap the egg all over and peel from large end first.

Ours peeled fairly well, but maybe our eggs weren't old enough. A few didn't turn out as pretty as others, but overall, they were perfectly cooked! No weird green yolk spots.

I quickly learned that removing the yolk was a tool best left for my tiny espresso spoons.

Chelsea Market Cookbook Bacon Deviled Eggs | metalandhoney.com

This is where the old me would've balked at the thought of eating these chalky things.

Another process I wouldn't have thought of is pressing the yolks through a wire mesh sieve to grate the delicate yolks perfectly. Maybe everyone does this! But again, first timer here.

The mixins' is what excited me about this recipe. No plain 'ol mayo and mustard. When your flavor in a recipe is coming heavily from spices, I like to be very particular about the quality that goes in because it can really make or break the flavor.

The recipe called for sweet relish, but I really don't like sweet pickles, so I went with a dill relish. I also used old-style whole grain dijon mustard instead of the super smooth stuff you find more regularly. My favorite is the reliable French brand, Maille, and I think it really added something extra to this recipe. I also used a high quality paprika. I find that most general brand paprika you buy from the supermarket is flavorless and used mostly for color. I used Mas Portell Smoked Sweet Paprika and the flavor is outstanding. Dollop of mayo, some cayenne, salt, and black pepper, and time to mix!

I'm the worst about misplacing tiny things, so I'm pretty much always losing and repurchasing new metal tips. The only one I could find was a large plain, so I didn't get very fancy with my filling styling.

Bacon and eggs 'til the end of time. They go together like... bacon and eggs. Matthew cooked up some super thick, high quality bacon which I think was a really important texture choice. Creating these thick bacon chunks made for a chewiness that I enjoyed and maybe wouldn't have gotten with thin-sliced bacon.

We were blown away. These were freaking DELICIOUS and a huge hit with the crowd I made them for. I can't wait to experiment with my own recipes now that I have the hang of what makes a great deviled egg. Stay tuned! I might be obsessed.