Gefüllte Eier bayerischer Art

Gefüllte Eier bayerischer Art sit on the cold table: Brotzeit, the bread-and-snack meal, picnics, parish potlucks, and the Sunday spread before anyone starts pretending they only came for one. In Bavaria I make them with butter, Bergkäse, chives, mustard, and radish. In the north they lean sharper with fish, pickle, or more mayonnaise; in the Rhineland you may see remoulade. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders.

The egg decides the dish before the filling does. Start the eggs in cold water, bring them up gently, then cool them hard in cold water, because a shocked egg stops cooking and peels cleanly. Let them sit hot and the yolk rims green, the white turns rubbery, and you've made punishment in an eggshell.

The filling has one rule: mash the yolks while they're still fine and dry, then work in soft butter before the wetter things. Butter coats the yolk and carries the Bergkäse, so the filling tastes round without turning loose. Mayonnaise alone makes it slack. Nicht aus dem Glas is for sauce, but the point holds: don't let a packet or a bottle do the cook's work.

Pipe it if you like, spoon it if you don't. Finish with chives and thin radish, because the bite needs green and peppery red against the pale egg. Schön ist, was schmeckt.