i have been having a ferocious attack of the egg salad craving. i think it started on the night of the blt salad, nothing better than a scoop of egg salad on a blt sandwich. or maybe it started when i read about egg salad in this EAT ME book. and maybe it got stronger when i read about egg guacamole in this EAT ME book. and i bet it really got crazy when i started writing that post about mayo and hedonism. (ps- i'm loving thinking of myself as a hedonist. i feel like an absolute dirty rotten scoundrel, a pirate, and a "hometown superhero" all rolled up. i am channeling some very good power from this idea.) either way, this craving has come on strong and i tried to live through yesterday without having any and that is just not going to work for today.
this is the sierra method for hard boiling some eggs, as learned from mama llama, tall dave and now kenny shopsin. you would be AMAZED at how hard it is for some people. if it is hard for you, please learn, and then make it your own- eggs are the most customizable food...
i put the eggs in a pot with cold water and some salt (mom says vinegar makes the shells come off easy- next time), the water covering the eggs. i bring to a boil without a lid. when the water boils, i cover the pot with a lid and turn off the heat. the amount of time that you let the eggs sit at this point is gonna determine a few things, how soft the yolk is, how beautiful your egg salad is going to be, and how much mayo you are going to need to use.
i go with about 11 minutes, depending how much attention i am paying to what i am doing. and then i stick the pot in the sink and run cold water over the pot, moving out the hot water. i waste all this water till the water in the pot is cold. i guess you could put some ice in or something, but you really want to STOP the cooking and get the eggs coldish. then i peel the eggs.
egg salad is going to be most beautiful if you have nice bright yellow yolks. this comes from cooking em right and also from using great eggs. i don't happen to have great (just good, they are going to get the job done) eggs this morning, and things are kinda hurried with having to work soon, so i just used what we had. but you can get great eggs at my friend's farm- hokybe farms in oxford. the chickens are running all around the cows (get your steaks there too! grass fed, yum!) and those chickens make some beautiful eggs. the taste difference is really amazing. i started eating farm fresh eggs in walla- we got them from the monteillets. joan would let the chickens lay where ever and then she would wander around and gather them up.. so you never knew if it was a "fresh" egg, but it was cool, they tasted so damn good!
the amount of mayo you need to use depends on how great those eggs taste and how hard they are cooked, and the texture you are looking for. i probably land on the softer end of the hard boiled scale- but still cooked cause i am me. i am going to mash up these eggs, stir in a blob of mayo, some of this really special tomatillo salsa (this is the crunch and the vinegar and the sweetness and some smokey/roasty heat, my goodness its good!), some s & p. and then i am going to eat it with chips and then i am going to work!
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