Introduction
Casino eggs are a popular feature on buffets and cold platters. They are almost always served with a colourful vegetable salad in creamy dressing known as the “French salad” in Hungary, but elsewhere, elsewhere may be known as “Russian salad.” This recipe is a basic classic, but you can add your own ingredients to suit your preferences.
Preparation is done in stages as everything needs to cool down before the final assembly. Practical to prepare the cooked ingredients the night before. Casino eggs are often paired with ham rolls filled with horseradish butter cream and served with fresh bread.
Ingredients:
(6-8 servings)
- 8 large free range eggs, hard boiled
For the salad:
- 2 medium potatoes,(about 240 g) diced into ½ inch even squares
- 3 medium carrots, diced into ½ inch even squares
- a good handful ~ 1 cup of frozen peas
- 1-2 apple, diced into ½ inch even squares
- 2-3 pickled gherkins, diced into ½ inch even squares
- ½ white onion, finely chopped or grated
- fresh parsley for decoration
For the dressing:
- 500 ml (2 cups) sour cream
- 250 ml (1 cup) of mayonnaise -I use “light”
- juice of ½ lemon
- 1tbsp french mustard
- 1 tsp sugar (or to taste)
- salt (to taste)
- 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
For the egg yolk filling
- You will need the hard boiled egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon of finely grated onion
- 2 tablespoons from the above mayonnaise dressing we are using for the salad
- 1 teaspoons of french mustard, or english mustard but needs a bit less as it is stronger
- salt and pepper
Method
- Prepare hard-boiled eggs. I place the eggs in cold water so they are well covered, bring to boiling point then turn off the heat completely and forget about them for a couple of hours. They need to go completely cold.
- Cook the potatoes and carrots for 2-3 minutes add the frozen peas and cook for further 3 minutes, until all well cooked but not falling apart. Strain then rinse with cold water and set aside to go cold.
- Chop the apple and gherkins, combine with the now cooked and cold potato carrots and peas.
- For the dressing combine the sour cream, mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice, sugar salt and pepper, taste frequently till reach a combination you like
- Combine the evenly chopped vegetables, apples and gherkin with ¾ of the prepared salad dressing – retain some to cover the eggs with.
- Carefully cut the eggs in half, place the yolks in a bowl, mash with a fork, add salt, pepper, 2 tbsp of the dressing, 1 tbsp finely grated/chopped onion, a bit more mustard to your preference.
- Fill the cooked egg white cases with the egg yolk mixture and place it on top of the salad upside down like little domes, cover the egg halves with the rest of the salad cream.
- Decorate with fresh chopped parsley and you can dot some tomato pate on as well.
- Refrigerate a couple of hours before serving with fresh bread, meats, ham.