Last weekend was Easter and I bloody love me a good fertility festival (eggs, bunnies, come on the clues are all there!) so I decided to go full on hippy and dye some eggs naturally.
When I was but a wee lass we would always decorate eggs at Easter, taking them to a nearby hill to roll and crack them before eating them. I remember dyeing them with onion skins, I'm sure we also drew on them with pens but my memory isn't so great on the finer detail...
Anyhoo, one of the bookmarks on my phone (for over a year now) is the following....
Don't they look wonderful?
Now as luck would have it, we recently had some beetroot and a red cabbage delivered that I had no idea what to do with. Neither Ben or I are mad keen on beetroot and we had a red cabbage recently that I made a ton of sourkraut with so I had no need for more...
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| I've been eating this for days... |
So I decided to give this a try.
I'll preface this by saying I don't seem to be able to find white eggs these days. I'm sure if I went to a farm shop I could, but normal free range supermarket ones are always brown so less good for the dyeing.
I'll also use this opportunity to say I used Delia Smith's method to boil the eggs before dyeing, you can read it here,
The thing about Delia is that she's reliable. A lot of her recipes may not be fancy, but they work. If you're ever unsure, turn to Delia.
Anyhoo...
First I prepared the blue dye with the cabbage.
First I prepared the blue dye with the cabbage.
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| Blue seems unlikely from this doesn't it? |
I have to start by expressing my frustration with American recipes that use 'cups' as a measure for vegetables. So annoying! It's massively inaccurate, it depends on the size of the chop, how you pack them down, even whether you measure them in a big jug or actual individual measuring cups. Now don't get me wrong, I own a couple of sets of measuring cups and I do use them... for liquid ingredients. To me, that makes sense, but solid ingredients? Nope. And don't even get me started on 'a cup of butter'!
Sorry, had to take a break there while I stopped shaking with rage.
After ranting about the unit of measurement I got down to it, and from a small cabbage I made enough dye for about 9 eggs, but I just dyed 4 as I didn't want to go over the top (too late you say?). A word of warning, the smell from the boiling cabbage didn't seem too strong, but an hour later I could still smell it in every room in the house. Ick.
Next I gave the beets a go.
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| Yes, I dyed them in a beer mug. And what of it? |
I had only 2 small-ish beets so I included the red stems and the peelings (well washed) in the pot, although I based the water measurement just on the volume (gah!) of shredded beets.
I had to squeeze the beets out in a muslin to get enough liquid for even 1 cup of dye, but that's a pretty fun, if messy, job. I decided just to do 2 eggs this time, that's 6 so far...
I thought I'd try the turmeric too, who amongst us hasn't experienced its awesome staining power when messily making a curry?
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| Mmmm... gloopy... |
Well this was just yuck. The smell the turmeric gave off while cooking can only be described as pungent. I use turmeric a lot, but usually in conjunction with a lot of other things. It was not nice. Luckily it faded quickly... to be replaced by the lingering boiled cabbage aroma.
Unfortunately, after the simmering it became this disgusting gloopy paste. Kitchen based tasks rarely gross me out, I've jointed a rabbit with no problems, but the texture of this was just so unpleasant. I tried to strain it but it wouldn't go through the sieve and the muslin wasn't fine enough to stop it glopping thickly through the fabric *retches*. So I decided I'd just thin it out a little with the vinegar as directed and leave it unsieved. Again I used 2 eggs.
At that point I left the lot in the fridge to check on in a few hours.
So, after 5 hours I checked on my eggs.
The turmeric were not amazing, despite the amount of staining on my hands and clothes (well, pyjamas).
I suspect a lot of that is due to the starting colour of the eggs. Disappointing, but they might get better with a bit longer in the dye.
The beets were a bit better.
Although it seemed like a good bit of the staining would rub off if I wasn't careful.
But the crowning glory was the cabbage.
Look how pretty! Some of it might rub off but I think it's still a wonderful result!
I decided to give them another 5 hours, but I thought I'd mix them up a bit for funsies.
I put 1 red egg back in the red dye, and the other in the yellow in the hopes of orange (my favouritest colour). Then 1 yellow egg back in the yellow dye, and the other in the blue as more blue can't hurt, 3 blues back in the blue and one in the red. We may get purple if we're very lucky...
So after 6 hours and a bottle of wine (at least) I remembered to check them again and I got this.
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| Not entirely successful, but you can see what I was going for. |
So I left them to dry in the fridge in hopes that the next morning they would look less blurry to me.
So when I got up (after tea and bacon) I got them out of the fridge, rubbed a little olive oil on them and this was the end result.
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| My personal favourite is the purple and blue one. So pretty! |
You'll notice that there's one less egg than before. This is entirely due to the fact that I got hella drunk on Easter Sunday (Ben and I were playing our Battlestar Galactica drinking game) and needed protein. So I ate one. And it was perfect thanks to Delia's foolproof method.
Verdict; this is a bit fiddly and a total ball-ache but if you're a culinary geek and a sucker for twee seasonal crafts like me then you'll love it.
In proper Easter fashion Ben and I then went outside and rolled these down the slope that we laughingly call our lawn. Fun!
One end note, I should point out that while I bounced around the kitchen, merrily making all the mess in the world, Ben was just behind me cleaning and washing up all my mess. Metaphors for life...
Love and kisses!
H.
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