Mediterranean Deviled Eggs, Spotlight on Anchovies, Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs, The Truth About Eggs, and How to Balance Exercise and Eating

In this issue we’ll cover how to finally achieve the perfect hard-boiled egg for the oh-so-classic hors d’oeuvre—deviled eggs, but with a Mediterranean spin.

Mediterranean Deviled Eggs

• Mediterranean Deviled Eggs

  They say what’s old is new again, and that’s definitely true about the classic hors d’oeuvre deviled eggs. But I like to put a Mediterranean spin on this popular canape with heart-healthy extra virgin olive oil as the enrichment rather than the original, butter. Olive oil not only adds creaminess, but a delicious spiciness, too. And adding a variety of garnishes lets you get super creative and give your platter of deviled eggs a festive look. Enjoy!

  Ingredients

  • 12 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
  • 2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon-style mustard
  • 1 tablespoon minced shallot or onion
  • 1 tablespoon flat-leaf parsley, rough chopped
  • 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, preferably from a Meyer lemon
  • 1 anchovy or 1/2 to 1 teaspoon anchovy paste
  • 1/2 clove garlic, minced
  • Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • Your choice of garnishes (ideas below)

  Directions

  Step 1

  Cut the eggs in half lengthwise, remove the yolks and transfer them to the bowl of a small food processor. (Alternatively, use an electric hand-held mixer.) Put the egg white halves on a deviled egg platter or other oversized dish.

  Step 2

  To the bowl with the yolks, add 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, the mayonnaise, mustard, shallot or onion, parsley, lemon juice, anchovy, and garlic and process until fairly smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste and the remaining tablespoon of olive oil if the mixture is too thick.

  Step 3

  To pipe the filling into the egg white halves, place a resealable plastic bag into a tall drinking glass and turn the edges over the rim of the glass. (For an extra fancy touch, place a wide fluted pastry tip in one of the lower corners.) Fill the bag with the yolk mixture and seal the bag after pressing out any air. Snip off one of the lower corners and then gently squeeze a generous amount of the filling into the egg white halves. If you don’t have enough filling for all the whites, chop the remaining ones and enjoy them in a salad. Garnish the deviled eggs with your choice of olive slices, slivers of sun-dried tomatoes, drained brined capers, chopped chives, good-quality anchovies, basil chiffonade, caviar and/or a sprinkle of pimentón (Spanish smoked paprika). I like to pick four to six options, depending on what I have on hand. Cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve. The deviled eggs can be made up to four hours in advance.

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Anchovies

When it comes to anchovies, you either love them or you haven’t really tried them or your experience has been with poor-quality anchovies packed in poor-quality oil, and they were overly fishy. If that’s the case, I say it’s time to try again because anchovies impart the all-important “fifth taste,” umami, to dishes. They also typically disappear as they meld into other ingredients—this is especially true when added to a sauce or a sauté. Buy best-quality anchovies in a jar that, once opened, will keep for a few weeks in the fridge, or get a tube of anchovy paste for even easier use.

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs

Want perfectly round centers on your hard-boiled eggs? The day before cooking, place the eggs on their sides in their carton. To make peeling easier, cook eggs by placing them directly from the refrigerator into boiling water. Then lower the heat to a simmer to avoid the usual “boil-over.” I like to cook them for 12 minutes and then plunge them into cold water to stop the cooking process and chill them down quickly. Gently crack the shell all around and peel under running water.

For Your Best Health

Are Eggs Good for Me, or Not?

It seems that there are as many studies on the effects of eggs on health as there are days in the year, with the results of new studies often contradicting prior findings! Take the study published in February 2021 in the journal PLoS Medicine. Researchers analyzed self-reported egg-eating for the year 1995 from a pool of more than a half-million retired Americans and then looked at the incidence of heart disease and diabetes and deaths over the next 16 years. Of all the foods recorded on participants’ questionnaires—124 to be exact— the study pointed a finger at previously exonerated eggs as the culprit for those ills. But a group of experts queried by the British group Science Media Centre, which provides interpretation and statistical analyses of scientific studies, said “not so fast.”

“The most important drawback of this study was the way egg consumption data was collected. What and how much food people ate was asked just once, and people were asked to recall what they had eaten in the past. This is problematic because people tend to forget; also their diets might change a lot, particularly if they became ill,” said Ada Garcia, PhD, one of the experts and a senior lecturer in Public Health Nutrition at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. “Studies that observe diet and lifestyle behaviours are useful to understand whether what we eat is linked to becoming ill or dying, but they are not conclusive. We eat a combination of foods and one specific part of the diet—in this case, whole eggs—cannot be fully blamed. The key thing to remember is to keep a balance in what we eat and what we do: Eating a variety of healthful foods, avoiding overeating or indulging in foods that are too high in sugar and energy, keeping an eye on how much salt we eat. Being overweight or obese, smoking, consuming too much alcohol, and not being physically active are much more important factors to consider for prevention of chronic diseases and related deaths. The conclusions of this study are overblown. Blaming eggs alone for an increased risk of cardiovascular disease is a simplistic and reductionist approach to the concept of diet and disease prevention.”

Another point to make is that many studies have acknowledged that cholesterol from foods like eggs doesn’t translate to high blood cholesterol and its health consequences—that’s due more from saturated fat. But when it comes to buying eggs, there’s a different type of confusion—this time surrounding which are the healthiest. According to the Cleveland Clinic’s Kristin Kirkpatrick, RD, LD, USDA labels don’t always tell the whole story. For instance, “organic eggs” sound great and tell you that the chickens weren’t given growth hormones, but not whether they had antibiotics or were raised humanely. “Free-range” and “free-roaming” don’t indicate the quality of the hens’ outdoor space or how often they were able to access it. “Cage-free” doesn’t tell you how crammed they might have been in the chicken house. On the other hand, she points out that “pasture-raised” means the chickens were free to hunt for their food and, as a result, their eggs tend to naturally have more omega-3 fatty acids and the antioxidant lutein—you can tell by the deeper yolk color. She points out that the gold standard for humane treatment is a stamp on the egg carton that says “animal welfare approval.” The silver medal goes to the “certified humane” designation. Want really fresh eggs? Check out small farmers in your area and visit them to check out the operation for yourself, she suggests.

Fitness Flash

Balancing Exercise and Eating

Could exercise be making you fatter? Exercise is an essential part of good health, but when it comes to calories, a brisk 30-minute walk, for example, only burns off somewhere between 150 and 200 calories. Yes, that can help with weight loss efforts, but here’s the rub—most people overestimate exercise’s calorie burn, plus they tend to reward themselves with food afterwards and actually take in more calories than they used in working out. This behavior was confirmed by an experiment conducted by scientists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Nebraska. They compared the amount of food that study participants ate after exercise as well as after a rest period.

“We were able to show for the first time that certain characteristics, such as the amount and ‘urgency’ with which a person wants to eat, change over the course of physical exertion,” said Karsten Köhler, PhD, assistant professor in exercise, nutrition, and health at TUM. “The actual results suggest that physical exertion can entice those who do sport to eat larger amounts of food more quickly after the training session. Since weight loss is a main motivation for exercising for many, and failure to achieve the desired weight loss makes it likely to quit exercising, it could be a good strategy to think about what you want to eat afterwards before you start to exercise.”

For instance, have yogurt and fruit at the ready instead of reaching for an oversized muffin. The research team is now looking at other strategies that could make exercise a more substantial part of weight loss.

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Tuna Ceviche with Avocado, Spotlight on Merquén, How to Shop for Raw Fish, Diet, Exercise, Manual Jobs and Heart Health

The one I want to share with you in this edition of the Olive Oil Hunter Newsletter comes from central Chile and features one of the area’s most widely used spice mixtures: merquén (you’ll also see it spelled merkén). Rusty red in color, it’s made by grinding dried smoked goat’s horn chiles with salt and toasted coriander seeds…and it adds an unmistakable flavor to this dish. When shopping online, look for true merquén from Chile. Etnia is one brand that sources it directly.

Tuna Ceviche with Avocado

• Tuna Ceviche with Avocado

  Originally from the neighboring country of Peru, ceviche is very popular in Chile. Not surprising given Chile’s proximity to the Pacific (it has thousands of miles of coastline).

  Ingredients

  • 1 pound sushi-quality albacore or yellowfin tuna, cut in 1/2-inch dice
  • 1/2 small red onion, cut in small dice
  • 1 garlic clove, peeled and minced
  • 1 to 2 serrano or jalapeño chiles, to taste, stemmed, seeded and minced
  • 1 tablespoon brined capers, rinsed and drained
  • 1 ripe avocado, peeled, pitted, and cut in small dice
  • Coarse salt (kosher or sea) and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 1/3 cup fresh lime juice
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 chopped fresh cilantro leaves, or more to taste Leaf lettuce, baby arugula, baby spinach, or radicchio leaves, for serving

  Directions

  Step 1

  Refrigerate the diced tuna while you prepare the remaining ingredients.

  Step 2

  Place the onion in a small bowl and cover with cold water. Let it sit for five minutes, then drain, rinse, and dry on paper towels. (This step removes some of the bitterness.)

  Step 3

  In a medium bowl, combine the onion, garlic, chile, capers, avocado, salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons of the lime juice. Toss together gently. Add the tuna to the bowl.

  Step 4

  Stir together the remaining lime juice and the olive oil. Pour over the tuna and toss the mixture together. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes, stirring gently from time to time.

  Step 5

  Just before serving, add the cilantro and toss. Taste and adjust seasonings. Line salad plates with salad greens, spoon the ceviche on top, and serve.

  Serves 4 to 6 — Recipe from cooking.nytimes.com

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Merquén

Merquén is a spice created by Chile’s indigenous Mapuche people and it’s an essential ingredient in Mapuche cuisine. It’s the star of puré de papas picante (spiced mashed potatoes), pebre (salsa), and mani merquén (roasted peanuts). Try it sprinkled on your favorite nuts as well as on fresh popcorn. It’s both spicy and smoky, and reminds me of Spain’s pimentón, so it’s great in many classic Spanish dishes, too.

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

How to Shop for Raw Fish

Seafood shopping can be a true challenge, especially when you want fish that’s safe to eat raw. While the citrus juice used in ceviche changes the chemistry of raw seafood, it doesn’t remove every possible toxin. So, you still want to start with the freshest fish possible. The reason to look for sushi-grade (or sashimi-grade) tuna is that it has been harvested, transported, and stored to exact specifications so that it is always maintained at a safe (meaning cold enough) temperature. A very safe option is buying frozen fish filets that have gone through super-freezing, in which just-caught fish are frozen rapidly at temperatures between −76 °F to −112 °F, a method that also kills parasites. When allowed to thaw in the fridge, fish treated this way can actually taste fresher than fresh. If the fish listed as sushi grade at your store is labeled “previously frozen,” ask the fishmonger if it was super-frozen. If it was, then you can buy without worry. Because of growing demand for sushi-grade fish, you can now buy it online from some top-notch seafood companies, like New York’s famous Fulton Fish Market, and get it shipped right to your home.

For Your Best Health

Diet and Exercise Go Hand-in-Hand

Salt and pepper, seltzer and lime, olive oil and balsamic vinegar—there are some things that just go hand in hand. The same is true for diet and exercise. You likely already know that the US Department of Health and Human Services offers separate recommendations for each: the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. But what was unclear was whether you could achieve health benefits from sticking to just one set of recommendations. Though many of us suspected the answer, we now know for sure: It takes both, especially to prevent a dangerous condition known as metabolic syndrome. This is a combination of health risk factors, including excess fat around the waist, insulin resistance, and high blood pressure, which are conditions that, in turn, set the stage for heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

Researchers analyzing data from 2,379 participants of the decades-long Framingham Heart Study found that adhering to the diet guidelines alone lowered the odds of metabolic syndrome by 33%, and adhering to physical activity guidelines alone lowered them by 51%, but following both lowered the odds by 65%.

And there’s no time to lose. “The earlier people make these lifestyle changes, the more likely they will be to lower their risk of cardiovascular-associated diseases later in life,” said the study’s corresponding author Vanessa Xanthakis, PhD, assistant professor of medicine and biostatistics at Boston University School of Medicine.

Fitness Flash

Manual Jobs and Heart Health

Speaking of exercise, a 10-year study published in the European Heart Journal has some startling findings about health effects of jobs that require a lot of activity, whether from standing all day or doing heavy physical labor. While workers might be moving all day long, if the work activity causes blood pressure to stay high all day long, too, that’s risky for your heart—and quite the opposite of the heart-health benefits of a 30-minute leisure-time walk, for instance. “Many people with manual jobs believe they get fit and healthy by their physical activity at work and therefore can relax when they get home. Unfortunately, our results suggest that this is not the case,” said Professor Andreas Holtermann, PhD, of the National Research Centre for the Working Environment in Copenhagen, Denmark. “And while these workers could benefit from leisure physical activity, after walking 10,000 steps while cleaning or standing seven hours in a production line, people tend to feel tired, so that’s a barrier.”

Professor Holtermann is piloting several approaches to make work activity more beneficial. These call for using new strategies to complete tasks, like rotating between sitting, standing, and lifting during a shift for those on a production line, as well as ways to infuse sedentary jobs with chunks of heart-healthy fitness time.

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Mojo Chicken With Avocado & Mango Salsa, Spotlight on Avocados, The Benefits of a Food Journal and Fighting High Blood Pressure

I love incorporating tropical flavors in unexpected dishes, like a main course. Many salsas, for instance, include fruit and avocados are delicious accompaniments to grilled pork, chicken, and fish.

Mojo Chicken With Avocado & Mango Salsa

• Mojo Chicken With Avocado & Mango Salsa

  The following recipe features a marinade of mojo, the Cuban classic built on a base of olive oil, citrus, and garlic. I like to double the salsa ingredients to have some as a dip for chips or for another dish the next day.

  Ingredients

  For the marinade:

  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped
  • 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • 3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
  • 2 tablespoons gourmet vinegar
  • 3 pounds skinless chicken thighs

  For the salsa:

  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons gourmet vinegar
  • 1/4 cup fresh orange juice
  • 2 teaspoons orange zest
  • 2 teaspoons lime zest
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1 teaspoon soy sauce
  • 4 tablespoons butter, cubed
  • 2 ripe mangos, peeled, pitted, and diced
  • 2 ripe avocados, peeled, pitted, and diced
  • 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

  Directions

  Step 1

  Marinate the chicken: In a food processor, pulse the cumin, garlic, jalapeño, and salt into a paste, and then drizzle in the olive oil, the juices, and vinegar. Place the chicken in a large bowl, pour in the marinade, rotate it to distribute the marinade, and cover. Refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.

  Step 2

  An hour before you’re ready to grill the chicken, prepare the salsa. In a medium saucepan, whisk the oil, vinegar, juice, zests, honey, and soy sauce and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until reduced by half. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter. Place the mangos and avocados in a bowl and drizzle with the reduced sauce. Gently fold to coat the fruits, and then sprinkle with the cilantro; set aside.

  Step 3

  Grill the chicken until it reaches an internal temperature of 165°F. Transfer to a platter and spoon on half the salsa, serving the rest on the side.

  Yields 4-6 servings.

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Avocados, chock-full of healthy fats

Avocados taste sinful but are among the healthiest foods, rich in essential nutrients and fiber. Just like extra virgin olive oil, they’re chock-full of healthy fats called MUFAs, or monounsaturated fatty acids. Research has found that including avocados in your diet may even help with weight control—they’re so satisfying that they tend to stave off hunger between meals. Also, people who eat avocados tend to eat healthier in general. According to research published in the journal Nutrients, avocados have a specific, naturally occurring sugar called mannoheptulose that may impact calorie intake and weight loss because of the positive changes to gut hormones and energy expenditure it generates. Another study, published in Nutrition Journal, found that eating avocados may help reduce the risk for metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors, including high blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol, that’s often a precursor to conditions like diabetes and heart disease.

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

Preserve Avocado Half with EVOO

Avocado is calorie-dense, so if you’re counting calories, you might want to limit each serving to a few slices. In our home we eat a lot of avocado, and there’s typically a half in our refrigerator at most times. A neat trick to prevent the normal browning due to oxidation on the leftover piece is to keep the pit in place and lightly brush the exposed flesh with extra virgin olive oil. Place the avocado skin side up in a sealed container and refrigerate. Enjoy within a day or two.

For Your Best Health

The Benefits of a Food Journal

The scientists concluded that long-term HP-EH-EVOO or MP-EVOO was associated with significant improvement in cognitive function compared to the Mediterranean diet alone. This isn’t to say that the diet isn’t helpful—dozens of studies have shown it supports many areas of health, including the heart. But, as the researchers point out, it’s not a single prescribed diet, but rather a general food-based eating pattern that varies by local and cultural differences throughout the Mediterranean region. Having 50 m/L of high-phenol EVOO olive oil daily could help further its known benefits.

If you’ve ever kept a journal, whether to track calories or to get through a particularly difficult time in your life, you know that taking pen to paper can have a strong positive effect. Journaling documents important experiences, tells you where you’ve been, and shows you what can help move you forward. According to the health organization Kaiser Permanente, there are seven amazing reasons to journal. Journaling can help you:

1. Achieve goals.
2. Track progress and growth.
3. Gain self-confidence.
4. Improve writing and communication skills.
5. Reduce stress and anxiety. 
6. Find inspiration. 
7. Strengthen memory.

Journaling can be as simple as making daily notes or as sophisticated as writing an epic. It all depends on the goals you’re trying to achieve. For inspiration, read about the many different types of journaling on the Kaiser Permanente website.

Fitness Flash

Fighting High Blood Pressure

February is American Heart Month and the perfect time to take up the fight against one of the biggest threats to heart health—high blood pressure. Whether you want to avoid it or help lower your numbers, make exercise part of the plan. A bout of exercise can drop both systolic and diastolic blood pressure by an average of 5 to 7 mmHg, and more for people with a higher starting blood pressure. With regular exercise, over time, these improvements can stick, and even a small drop in numbers can be beneficial in the long term. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends moderate-intensity aerobic training five to seven days per week—daily is best because of the blood pressure-lowering effects—plus two to three resistance training sessions per week.

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