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Monday, April 25, 2011

Beet-Pickled Eggs

I have a vague memory of my mother serving hard boiled eggs that were purple on the outside. I'm not talking about the shells. I mean that the white if the egg was purple. The color penetrated partway into the white, but there was still some bright white.

Mom served the eggs sliced.

Other than that, I don't remember much about them.

I figured that the color came from beets, but I wasn't sure about the method. I turned to the community at Serious Eats to see if anyone every heard of eggs like these, and the consensus was that they were soaked in the juice from pickled beets. Well, that made sense, My mother used to make pickled beets pretty often.

That's all I needed. So this is what I did:

Beet-Pickled Eggs (and pickled beets)

5 hard boiled eggs, peeled (okay, I started with 6, but one of them, uh... disappeared.)
6 medium beets, cooked, peeled, and sliced
1/2 medium onion, sliced
1 1/3 cups water
1 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Put the eggs, beets, and onion in a non-reactive bowl. Heat the vinegar, water, sugar and salt to boiling. Pour this over the beets and eggs in the bowl. If the liquid doesn't cover the ingredients, add more vinegar and water, as needed.

Let the mixture come to room temperature, then refrigerate overnight. The next day, you'll have a ring of purple surrounding the bright white. If you leave the eggs soaking longer, the color will penetrate further. It's up to you.

After you pull out the eggs, the beets and onions can be served alongside the eggs or separately. Or, if you have juice left over from pickled beets, use that rather than making a fresh batch of pickled beets.

You can serve the eggs simply sliced, but in this case I decided to make deviled eggs with them. Use your favorite recipe. My typical add-ins are mayonnaise to the get texture I'm looking for, mustard and sweet pickle relish - just a little for the the tartness of mustard and sweetness of pickles, and then just a hint of horseradish for a little kick.

19 comments:

Catherine Peart said...

Oh my gosh, I love the colour on these!!

Donna Currie said...

Thanks Catherine! I was really happy with the results on these.

Anonymous said...

Do you peel the eggs before soaking with the beets?

Donna Currie said...

Yes, peeled. Thanks - I've added that to the instructions.

MariposaKate said...

Donna, the colors are beautiful! :)

sam henderson said...

This is such a fun idea! I can't wait to try it. So glad I stumbled upon your site.

Carey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sophia said...

What a cool idea! I love how strong the purple color is!

CJ said...

Yep, those are the eggs I remember too.

SEO Company said...

The only way we ever had "pickled eggs" was in pickled beet juice. I was an adult before I ever saw white pickled eggs. I've never eaten the white ones because it just seems wrong that they're pickled and not red!

Chris said...

can we use canned beets instead of peeling, cooking and slicing fresh ones?

Donna Currie said...

Canned beets will work just fine. Plenty of color in those, too.

Anonymous said...

Can you tell me how long they will last if I wish to make a large batch and refrigerate?

Donna Currie said...

I really don't know - we usually use them in a couple days.

Anonymous said...

What is considered a non reactive bowl. Does that mean it has to be glass?

Donna Currie said...

Glass or stainless steel. Aluminum would be bad, but there aren't that many uncoated aluminum bowls around, anyway. You wouldn't want to put it in your cast iron pots, either ;-)

Anonymous said...

My mom would leave them in the beets juice ( pickeling ) for 2 weeks before we ate them.

KristaR said...

My family has made these for years... a recipe passed down from my Swedish great great gandmother. In addition to the beet juice, however, we poke the egg with several whole cloves and let them soak up the juice for a minimum of a week. :) We have them every Easter. Mine are in the fridge now pinking up! Yum!

Donna Currie said...

Oooh! I love the idea of adding cloves! when my mom made her own pickled beets, there were usually cloves in the pickling liquid, but I like the idea of stabbing the eggs with the whole cloves. I think I'll try that!

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