Are you looking for a delicious recipe to make for your next get-together with family or friends? Deviled Eggs are always a popular choice, yet many cooks do not make them, feeling unsure of the steps necessary to get a successful result. There's nothing worse than boiling a dozen new eggs and finding you can't peel the shells off without pulling half the egg white along with it. That's when you give up on making deviled eggs for the day, and try to salvage the eggs by making egg salad instead!

You'll be pleased to know, however, that making deviled eggs does not have to be difficult. Some simple tips can make the whole experience easy and fun.

First, you should never use the freshest eggs for a deviled egg recipe. Why? This is because new eggs are much harder to peel than those that have aged for at least one week, preferably two weeks. No one is exactly sure why older eggs are easier to peel than new ones, but most researchers believe it is due to a gas layer build-up between the shell and the membrane of the egg. This helps the membrane of the egg release more easily from the cooked egg white.

Secondly, have you ever boiled your eggs and found after you peeled them that there was a greeny-brown layer around the egg yolk? This occurs because of a natural chemical reaction between iron in the egg yolk with sulphur in the egg white. You can minimize this green layer by rapidly cooling your eggs after initial boiling. Here is a brief outline of the cooking technique: place your eggs in a pot large enough to comfortably make one layer of eggs and fill with water to one inch over the top of the eggs. Bring the pot to a boil then take the pot off of the hot burner and let the pot sit with the eggs for 20 minutes to finish cooking the eggs. Then, immediately take the eggs out of the hot water and place in a bowl of ice water to cool off. This rapid cooling will prevent little (if any) greenish icky stuff to form, resulting in a nicer colour and flavor for your deviled egg filling!

A third tip - add the mayonnaise as the last ingredient when making your deviled egg fillings, and only a tablespoon at a time, or only half a tablespoon at a time for smaller recipes. A typical complaint I have heard from folks trying a new deviled eggs recipe is that the egg filling ends up either too runny or too thick. Too thick is easy to fix by adding a little more mayonnaise, but once you have made the filling too runny, it gets a little more challenging! If you add your mayonnaise a bit at a time, rather than all at once, you will have better control over the final thickness of the filling. You want the filling to be thick enough to stand up and not run over the edges of the eggs when hungry hands pick them up!