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Mama’s Pickled Eggs “Cajun Style”
Ingredients
- 1 dozen eggs
- 1 – 2 beets
- 1 small jar/can jalapenos en escabeche (pickled jalapeno chiles)
- 1 cellophane pkg. pickling spices
- 1/2 cup Balsamic or apple cider vinegar
- 4 – 6 toes fresh garlic
- 1 tsp. sea salt
- 1 tsp. pepper (black, red or white)
- Good water
- Large, wide mouth jar
Directions
Mama’s Pickled Eggs should be made at least 2 days in advance of when you are planning to serve them.
Hard boil, peel and set aside the eggs. Boil the beets until you can insert a fork with only moderate resistance; drain, peel and cut beets into quarters. Place the eggs and beets into a clean, dry, wide-mouth jar. Pour the contents of one jar or can* of jalapenos en escabeche into jar (more or less to taste). Bruise spices from cellophane pickling spice pack** with mortar and pestle and add to jar. Peel and sliver garlic toes and add.
Now add in vinegar, salt, pepper and water to approximately 1 – 2 inches from top of jar. Apply cap tightly and gently (over sink), upend jar back and forth several times to distribute ingredients.
Chill for 2 – 3 hours and then taste pickling juice. Add more salt, pepper, vinegar as desired. Place into refrigerator and allow the pickling process to proceed at least two days. (Of course, dad and we kids would NEVER wait two full days, which would infuriate our mother. Usually, they were all gone before the ritual two day wait and mama would have to boil up another batch to replace the missing eggs.)
Eggs are the perfect little package of amino acids, nutritious, filling and sustaining. They are treasure troves of energy and food value; high in vitamin A and phosphorus. Beets are high in A, C and vitamin B6 as well as calcium, potassium, choline, iron and natural sugars. Iron in this form is easily utilized by the body and thereby attests to the blood building attributes of beets.
The “canned jalapenos” were once rich in vitamin C. Probably all that’s left is mineral content where calcium and phosphorus reign. The garlic is raw and therefore enzymatically active. It is high in phosphorus, a great natural antibiotic as well as parasiticide, and a heaven sent counterbalance in its cholesterol cleansing fame to the cholesterol laden yolks you’re about to consume.
All the condiments from the pickling spice package are either dehydrated herbaceous or in seed form. Now think about what seed form means: just waiting to burst forth with life. So you have a combination of total food source time capsules whose sole purpose in this great cosmic universe is to bust out and perpetuate the life process. How can you not get excited just associating with all that positive energy coming out of these little power packs?
Vinegars, being fermented fluids, are also enzymatically active. Vinegar, owing to it’s sour nature, stimulates the liver to release bile, aiding in the digestive functions.
Enjoy my Mama’s eggs. We always did to the extent that, when they were gone, we’d stick other things in the jar to try to recapture or extend the event. Once we stuck dead potato bugs in there to see if dad would eat them in the middle of the night when he came home exhausted from closing the restaurant. We weren’t being mean; we were a creative and sophisticated bunch of heathens. To us, it was just a variation on snails in garlic butter with parsley.
About the Author
Dr. Allyn Cano Alwa’s food experimentation history began early as she watched and assisted her “Cajun” grandmother prepare the daily meals from a wide array of ingredients, uncommon to most households. Her parents opened and operated one of the first full service Mexican restaurants in the United States and went on to create a well known national chain, El Torito. Dr. Alwa, apprenticed by assisting her mother research and develop recipes, menus, and artistic food presentations for El Torito.
When she married into a south Indian family, she continued her tradition of watching and assisting in the kitchen, and began to appreciate the intracacies and delicacies of southern Indian cooking.
She developed a love and fascination with natural and ethnic foods – a fascination which persists to this day. She professes a common essential ingredient to all fine cuisine – love. Dr. Alwa believes the discerning factor for an exquisite dish and a superior preparer is the love and awareness put into the selection and preparation of the ingredients, as well as the emotional and healing gift it is to those for which it was prepared.
*Try to avoid canned foods. I will use them in only the rarest cases, this being one. If I can get this in a glass jar, I’ll always opt for that first. The important thing is read the ingredients – in fine print. I find most of the authentic Mexican labels are free of preservatives, coloring and unnatural sweeteners, while most brand names the American public is familiar with are full of them. Bring your magnifying glass and READ.
**These pickling spice packages are usually found where there is a display of Mexican spices in cellophane envelopes. If your store does not have these, you should at least be able to find little boxes with spices in it called crab boil. The ingredients are essentially the same; use half as much.
Check out other Dr. Allyn Cano Alwa recipes:
A Little Tomato Salad for Roberta
Published in Health & Healing Wisdom
Summer 1999 | Volume 23, Number 2
Copyright © 1999 Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, Inc.®
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