Picnic Makes Deviled Eggs Great Again (Plus, the Recipe)

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You know that Picnic loves a good hybrid as soon as you sit at one of the new Durham barbecue joint's square, dark-stained pine tables. There, in the gleaming condiment rack, towering above the salt and pepper shakers but level with the bottles of Texas Pete and ketchup, stands a true Tar Heel oddityPig Whistle, a barbecue sauce that blends the thick, sweet ketchup-based stuff of the West with the stinging, vinegar-and-pepper of the East. It's like Rameses sporting Duke blue, Mount Mitchell standing suddenly alongside a lighthouse.

Weeks before Picnic opened in early February, sous chef Isaac DeBoer, then in the throes of finalizing the place's appetizers, decided to dump some of the sauce into a brine designed for deviled eggs. A brine for deviled eggs, you say?

That's right: Rather than simply boil them, slice them, and turn the bright yolk into the tallow-colored filling, DeBoer opted to boil and then pickle the eggs before deviling themlike the sauce, a strange, perfect Southern combination.

"It just made natural sense to me," says DeBoer.

The brine gives the skin the light brown look of a marinated egg you might find lurking amid a mess of ramen. But the taste is strangely, exquisitely, and indelibly suggestive of smoked mozzarella. The pickling solution gives the albumen a little extra firmness, too, enhancing that brilliant cheese feint. When I first tried it, I wondered if it had somehow been grilled. It's a subtle, stunning reinvention of an aged staple.

After letting the eggs rest for six hours, Picnic's kitchen cuts them, scoops out the brine-soaked yolk, and combines it with a mess of ingredientswhole-grain mustard, Duke's mayonnaise, Texas Pete, and (alas!) a touch of rendered pork fat. They're topped with pickled shallots, adding a pop of crunch to the cream and chew.

"When you grow up, deviled eggs are just egg yolk and mayonnaise and maybe some mustard," says Picnic co-owner Ben Adams, who never liked them until he encountered DeBoer's reinvention. "But this gives you a little more texture. I like it a lot."

So does most everyone else, it seems: since opening two weeks ago, Picnic has depleted its daily supply of five dozen by the end of almost every night. When deBoer says Picnic will soon up the quantity, he grins proudlythe smile of a peacemaker between the pickle and the devil.

Next: Picnic's Pig Whistle Deviled Eggs Recipe

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Picnic's Pig Whistle Deviled Eggs

Brined Eggs

1 cup Pig Whistle BBQ Sauce

1 ½ cups apple cider vinegar

½ cup water

¼ cup kosher salt

2 tbs. and 2 tsp. molasses

12 eggs Deviled Egg Filling

½ cup hard-boiled egg yolks

2 tbs. Duke’s Mayonnaise

1 ½ tsp. Zatarain’s Creole Mustard

1 ½ tsp. Pig Whistle Brine

1 ½ tsp. Texas Pete

splash of cream as needed, ~ 2 tbs.

salt and black pepper to taste Pickled Shallots

2 cups shallots, sliced very thin length-wise

¾ cup red wine vinegar

½ cup water

3 tbs. honey

½ tsp. salt

4 sprigs thyme

1 bay leaf Bring a pot of water to a boil and gently drop the eggs in. Cook for 10 minutes until hard-boiled. Allow eggs to cool and then peel the shelves off. Combine all brine ingredients in a pot. Once ingredients have dissolved, pour over eggs and allow eggs to marinate for 6 hours. Cut eggs in half and remove egg yolks. You should have around ½ cup hard-boiled egg yolks. Combine with rest of ingredients for the filling and blend in a food processor until very smooth. Add cream as necessary for the filling to be smooth, and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Put in a piping bag. For the pickled shallots, bring all ingredients except the shallots to a boil and pour through a strainer over the shallots. Allow the shallots to marinate for at least 2 hours. To assemble, generously fill an egg white with filling and top with 2 or 3 slices of pickled shallots. Sprinkle with a bit of paprika and serve!

This article appeared in print with the headline "A Deal With the Devil"