Recipe and Styling by Libbie Summers
Photography by Chia Chong
A simple hard-boiled egg just got posh….in a sort of homesteading way.
Onion Skin Dyed Eggs
makes 6
Ingredients (supplies):
6 pieces of cotton fabric (about 6X6″, just big enough to wrap around the the egg and tie
2 tablespoons white vinegar
6 large eggs
Skins from 6 to 8 medium sized onions (I save the skins from all my onions and keep them in a container in the pantry. They hold well for a month.)
12 pieces of flat leaf parsley
6 pieces of butchers twine for tying
Directions:
Fill a medium size sauce pan 3/4 full with water and set aside. Dip the pieces of cotton in the water to wet them. Squeeze out any excess water and lay out flat on your work surface. Wipe the outside of each egg with vinegar and allow to dry. This will only take a few seconds to dry and will help the natural dyes to adhere to the egg shells. Working with one egg at a time, arrange two pieces of the flat leaf parsley on the egg. Begin to tightly wrap the egg in two or three layers of onion skins (covering the parsley). Take one of the wet pieces of cloth and wrap tightly around the egg and bringing the ends up to one side. Tie off the ends of the fabric with a piece of the butcher’s twine (like a purse or bundle) and place in the pan of water. Continue with the remaining eggs. When all the bundles are in the water, place it on the stove and bring to a low boil. Boil for 10 to 12 minutes. Allow to cool before untying the bundles and serving.
Libbie’s Food Styling Props: All images were shot on a zinc table top from Bastille Metal Works. The fabulous people over at Bastille supplied me these fantastic surfaces for my new book! I can’t thank them enough for their generosity. Please take a moment to check out their work…you will SWOOON! Fabric around eggs from Fabrika. Egg cup from Williams-Sonoma. Cocktail fork I just picked up at a junk shop in Seattle…don’t remember the name.
