Idle hands are the devil’s playthings and a bit of idle time led to to this take on Deviled Eggs. The History Channel tells me Deviled Eggs may be as ancient as 1st century Roman culture, where they marinated small song birds and stuffed them into eggs. In this case, my good friend Tom gave me the idea to throw a couple of hard-boiled eggs on while I was smoking a pork tenderloin. His previous experiment with smoking eggs lead me to peel them before smoking to allow more smoke to penetrate the eggs and as they were peeled, we smoked them at a very low heat. Here’s the visual history of an experiment:

I’m inspired. “Nice! Smoked Gribiche?”

So, I throw on a few eggs to smoke the next week-end.

Now, I’ve had a chance to let ideas marinate.

Let’s go with Double Deviled Eggs.

As a one bite appetizer, the first flavor is the roasted garlic, mayonnaise and sweet pepper, then you become aware of the hot sauce, and the lingering flavor as you finish is the smoke. Fire, to heat, to smoke. A very satisfying little experiment. See what idle hands can do?

Oh, and as a post script, take a look at the 18 hour smoke ring on the pastrami Tom had working. Gorgeous.