Cooking with Koa: Easter Eggs

Ah, the humble egg. Rarely does it figure so prominently in our culinary lexicon as it does at Eastertime. And as I’m working on a post about ways to fit the pets into your Sunday celebration, I decided it was only fitting that we do a little egg recipe in today’s Cooking with Koa segment.

If you’re going to have a bunch of people around who are going to try to be feeding your dog any one of a number of wildly inappropriate traditional Easter foods, it’s always wise to have a super special dog-only treat on hand to convince those wayward guests that you aren’t neglecting your pets and it really is OK to leave the Vienna sausages on the table. So in that vein, today we’re taking on devilled eggs, Koa style.

First, you need to boil your eggs. There are lots of ways to achieve this, some involving voodoo and pressure cookers and complicated heating algorithms, but I try to keep it simple. I do the ‘cover in cool water, bring to boil, and leave for 10 minutes’ approach. 

It’s still hard to get those puppies peeled, especially if the eggs aren’t old, but you do the best you can. Since I’m making these for the dogs, the cosmetic appeal is rather academic anyway.

Step 2: Perform your egg lobotomy by making a circumferential cut about 1/3 of the way down. You’ll also want to cut a bit off the bottom so the egg can stand up. These eggs were just shy of being fully hard boiled, so you may want to give yours longer than 10 minutes in the hot water.

Step 3: Make the egg filling. Remove the yolks from your egg whites and mash. Traditional devilled egg recipes call for something like 1/4 cup of mayonnaise or ranch dressing for every 6 egg yolks, but we’re trying to make these a little less fat-laden for the dogs so I used fat-free greek yogurt instead. It still makes the yolks a proper consistency and reduces the calorie count significantly.

I skipped the other traditional seasonings you might see like horseradish or mustard or paprika, since dogs aren’t known for being big horseradish fans. If you want to go even healthier, you can substitute mashed garbanzo beans for up to half of the egg yolks.

Step 4: Fill the eggs back up with the yolks and try the hat on for size. I used a little piping tool to fill the eggs but only because my husband told me if I didn’t use a kitchen tool for over a year I needed to get rid of it, and now I can say I used it. If the top of the egg slides off, you can trim it a bit.

Step 5: Make the face! I used carrots for the beak and feet and pieces of olive for the eyes. Sure, you may be asking yourself “What kind of insane person spends time making eyes for their devilled eggs for the dogs?” but most of the people who wonder that don’t read this blog anyway, having been scared away long before now. Come on. It’s a special occasion.

Step 6: Go for broke. You’re already halfway there, so why not stick a piece of dill or rosemary in his cap. And some carrot chips for his feet. And some curls of radish and carrot to fill his ramekin nest. See? If you have one of these in the fridge waiting for the dogs, there’s no way Uncle Art can argue with you that your poor sad dog looks so sad and needs ‘just one bite’ of a Peep.

If you’re really lucky, your kids might even want to try one, but if your kids are anything like mine, once the grandparents show up they’ll be in too much of a candy coma to notice real eggs anyway. They may be a lost cause, but the dogs don’t have to be. Bone appetit!

As always, if there’s a question as to the appropriateness of an ingredient for your pet, check with your vet before feeding it to your dog. No more than 10% of your dog’s daily calories should come from treats. One egg prepared as directed contains approximately 70-80 calories.