Caviar and Egg Mold

Adapted from Cook and Love It: A Collection of Favorite Recipes and Entertaining Ideas, published by The Mothers' Club of The Lovett School, Atlanta, Georgia. Contributed by Polly Pater and Deddy Bartenfeld

Serves 6 to 8 as an hors d'oeuvre

4 hard-boiled eggs, mashed
⅓ cup butter, softened
¼ to ⅓ cup mayonnaise (Use your favorite. I like Ojai Organic Mayonnaise.)
⅓ cup chopped scallions or shallots
Lemon juice
Salt to taste
½ cup sour cream (I use full-fat—Fage is my first choice; Breakstone my second)
Caviar, about a quarter of a cup (or more if you want to be extravagant)

Line a small bowl with plastic wrap.

Combine all the ingredients through salt. Pack the mixture into the bowl, cover with more plastic wrap, and chill well. As the butter chills, it will harden.

Unmold the bowl onto a serving plate; frost with sour cream, and top with caviar.

You can serve this with crackers, which makes it easy to put out, but I like it best with buttered white toast points—and that is what I do if the timing works with what I’m doing.

There is excellent American caviar now available. I have tried Paddlefish and Hackelback and enjoyed both very much. However, if you can find the lightly salted Spanish grey mullet roe called Mujjol “caviar,” you are in for a treat. It is usually very well priced and delicious, especially if served with sour cream on a salted potato chip accompanied by a shot of very cold vodka or a glass of Champagne. It is worth looking out for and would work well here. Of course, Beluga caviar would work well here—and anywhere!—and a little would go a long way.