Stuffed eggs (Huevos rellenos)

I decided to make a couple of Spanish tapas for starters in a lunch I made for friends who were visiting on Sunday. Huevos rellenos was one of them. The recipe is from Janet Mendel's Cooking in Spain.

Half way through the recipe, I learnt to make mayonnaise, Darina Allen's recipe.

Serves: 4 persons.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 100g tinned tuna
• 4 green olives, chopped
• 1 small red pepper, roasted (the recipe called for a small tin pimiento but I had beautiful peppers growing on my tree and did not see why I couldn't use them instead)
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 50ml mayonnaise
• salt & pepper to taste
• For the mayonnaise (makes 100ml):
• 1 egg yolk
• pinch of English mustard or ⅛ tsp French mustard (I had French mustard at home)
• ⅛ tsp salt
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 85ml oil: 25ml olive oil + 60ml vegetable oil

Method:

1. Hard cook the eggs, plunge them in cold water and peel them.
2. Cut the eggs lengthwise, remove the yolks and set aside.
   
   
   
3. In a bowl, mix the tuna with the chopped olives, part of the red pepper chopped finely, lemon juice and salt & pepper to taste. I roasted the red pepper and then removed it's skin and used ⅔ of it.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Fill the egg whites with this mixture. Tightly pack them in the egg and then make a dome on top with the remaining mixture.
5. Arrange the eggs on lettuce leaves on a serving dish.
   
   
   
6. Make the mayonnaise:
1. Put the egg yolk into a bowl with the mustard, salt and white vinegar.
   
   
   
2. Put the oil into a measure.
   
   
   
3. Take a whisk in one hand and the oil in the other and drip the oil onto the egg yolk, drop by drop, whisking at the same time.
4. Within a minute you will notice that the mixture is beginning to thicken. When this happens you can add the oil a little faster, but don't get too cheeky or it will suddenly curdle because the egg yolk can only absorb the oil at a certain rate.
5. If the mayonnaise curdles, it will suddenly become quite thin, and if left sitting the oil will start to float to the top of the sauce. If this happens, you can quite easily rectify the situation by putting another egg yolk or 1-2 tbsp of boiling water into a clean bowl and whisking in the curdle mayonnaise, a half-teaspoon at a time until it emulsifies again.
6. Taste and add a little more seasoning and vinegar if necessary.
   
   
   
7. Top each egg with a dab of mayonnaise and garnish with a strip of the remaining pepper.
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Sieve the egg yolks and sprinkle over the eggs. I wasn't sure how to 'sieve' the egg yolks and it was quite a lot of yolk. I minced it by rubbing it between my fingers and then sprinkled it on top but it didn't look that nice so I decided to leave it out.