I never really understood the definition of Midwestern cuisine, despite growing up in southwestern and southern Illinois. I knew and loved New England fare, Southern Sunday suppers and Tex-Mex combo platters. But hash browns, stuffed pork chops and grilled rib-eye? Those aren’t cuisine; they’re just dinner.
Amy Thielen’s The New Midwestern Table: 200 Heartland Recipes points out that I’m not the only one – Midwesterner or otherwise – to overlook these hearty regional dishes. “Over the years, so many dishes that originated in the Midwest have been flung into the world and reclaimed by everybody as just ‘American,'” Thielen writes. “And we’re fine with that, we really are.” Though her recipes hearken to regions of the Midwest a tad north of here (Nebraska, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc.,), it’s understandable. She spent three years living in a blip of a Minnesota town with no electricity, foraging many of her ingredients in the surrounding woods. Still, many recipes like butter-basted walleye, baked fried chicken, “fancy” meatloaf with bacon and mushrooms, and Swedish pancakes rang true to many dishes I’ve seen for years on local mom-and-pop restaurant menus.
The book is divided into sections like dips, party food and drinks; lake fish; sides; potatoes and onions; projects; and early-day baking. Like any good St. Louisan, I immediately looked for St. Louis-style pizza (Thielen calls it Cracker-Crust Pizza, and though I didn’t seen Provel cheese on the ingredient list, she gets points for effort.), pork steaks (Barbecued Pork Butt Steaks), and toasted ravioli (nope). Still, two out of three is nothing to scoff at.
I made Thielen’s Beet-Pickled Eggs with Hot Mustard Dust for two reasons. First, the classic bar snack is a perfect example of all the foods I wouldn’t touch as a child: hard-boiled eggs, pickles and mustard. Second, my family had plenty of post-Easter hard-boiled eggs just begging to be pickled.
The recipe is pretty straightforward: make pickling liquid, hard-boil eggs, seal and refrigerate overnight. The hardest part was making my own honey Dijon mayonnaise, which was a snap in the food processor.
Thielen uses a beet to give the eggs their vibrant pink hue; unfortunately, she didn’t specify which variety. The beet I snagged from the grocery store turned out to be the striped kind, which, while beautiful to look at, didn’t have as much pigment as its red cousin. (I do chalk up this error somewhat to my ignorance of beet exteriors.)
Since I didn’t get to color eggs this Easter (and I can’t leave well enough alone), I consulted a recent Sauce blog post to see what other shades I could create using natural dyes. The post advised using purple cabbage water to create blue-green egg shells, so I made another batch of Thielen’s pickling liquid, subbing purple cabbage for the beet.
The next day, my striped beet eggs were a pale, salmon pink, and my purple cabbage eggs were, well, purple. Not exactly the colors I was going for, but they were still stunning. What’s more, the pickling left each bite spicy-sweet and addictive when smeared with a healthy dollop of that mustardy homemade mayonnaise. With so much flavor packed into one bite after just 24 hours, I can’t wait to see how intense they will taste this weekend – if they last that long.
Amy Thielen’s Beet-Pickled Eggs with Hot Mustard Dust Makes 12 eggs
1 medium beet
1½ cups apple cider vinegar
¼ cup sugar
1 tsp. whole black peppercorns
5 small dried red chiles
1 3-inch cinnamon stick
1 tsp. coriander seeds
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
12 eggs, preferably farm-fresh
2 Tbsp. yellow mustard seeds
1 egg yolk
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 cup canola oil
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1½ Tbsp. honey
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
• Wash the beet, trim the ends and slice it into ½-inch thick rounds. Pour 3 cups water into a saucepan and add the beets, vinegar, sugar, peppercorns, chiles, cinnamon stick, coriander seeds and ¾ teaspoon salt. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Then remove from the heat and let cool at room temperature. Pour the pickling liquid into a large storage container and chill it in the refrigerator.
• Set the eggs in a 2-quart saucepan and add enough water to cover by 1 inch. Bring the water to a gentle simmer, boil for 1 minute, remove from the heat and leave the eggs in the water for 8 minutes. Drain the eggs, crack the shells against the side of the pan and cover them with fresh cold water. Peel the eggs underwater and add them to the cold pickling liquid. Let steep in the pickling liquid in the refrigerator overnight, or up to 7 days.
• For the mayonnaise, pulverize the yellow mustard seeds in a spice-devoted coffee grinder until fine but not powdered. Set aside.
• In a food processor, combine the egg yolk, lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon water and buzz to combine. With the machine running, add the canola oil drop by drop until an emulsion forms, then add the rest of the canola oil and the olive oil in a very thin stream. Season with 4 teaspoons of the ground mustard seeds, the honey, the Dijon mustard, and salt and pepper to taste.
• To serve the pickled eggs, blot them dry on paper towels, cut each one in half, and set on a platter (a deviled egg platter if you have one). Drop a small spoonful of honey-mustard mayonnaise over the yolk of each egg, and sprinkle generously with the remaining hot mustard dust.
Reprinted with permission from Clarkson Potter Publishers What’s your favorite way to use up hard-boiled Easter eggs? Tell us about it in the comments below for a chance to win a copy of The New Midwestern Table.
This article appears in April 2014.