You may be interested in this book, which looks pretty great. Or you may just want to keep having egg salad, which is perfectly okay.
It's sad, because I love the idea of the book (and plausibly many of the recipes) but find Ruhlman's writing entirely insufferable.
2: I'm glad I'm not the only one.
2, 4: I confess to hoping that an editor will have tamed the excesses and ramblings on his blog, which is the only writing of his I've read. I have found valuable information in the weeds of the writing.
There is such a thing as loving eggs yet disliking (actively) hard-boiled ones, no? Because there I stand.
On egg salad: it's a texture thing. Plus doesn't it get all stuck in your teeth? Maybe there's a way to add some, er, toothiness to it, by which I mean crunch. I would want the egg salad to be a delivery vehicle for other ingredients which have some crunch.
Not that I'm hating on egg salad lovers or anything: have at it.
6.1 should read: (actively) disliking. I don't want to give the impression that I think there's a difference between actively and passively hard-boiled eggs.
6: I am the same. I love eggs and eat them in many different ways, but boiled eggs gross me right out. Also, hard-fried eggs are inedible to me.
Recently, at a fancy tasting-menu dinner, I was offered, as a "vegetarian" course, three spears of steamed asparagus wrapped in prosciutto (!) with four slices of hard-boiled egg on top. For this, I paid $200. (The rest of the food was OK. The wine pairings were good. But as a vegetarian course, that was laughably stupid AND disgusting to me.)
10: At that price, you should have thrown it on the fucking floor.
10: When I requested (at least occasional) vegetarian meals during a family vacation where cooking duties would rotate, my now-BIL modified his suggestion of burgers to, "OK, then so how about burgers for the carnivores and chicken for the non-meat eaters?" Huh? Guess vegetarian money isn't worth as much at your fancy restaurant.
5: Definitely full of valuable information. I have Charcuterie, which I find fun, but I don't enjoy his blog or other journalistic writings.
I like to eat it on toast with pickles. So there's your crunch.
I did make a wonderful crustless tomato-corn quiche last night.
For a large pie pan (not the dinkier smaller ones):
6 eggs
1.25 cups milk
1 tbsp + 1 tsp. flour
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup minced green pepper
3/4 cup corn
3/4 cup fresh tomato, seeded and chopped small
3/4 cup swiss cheese
Combine together in that order. Pour into pie plate. Bake for 35-45 minutes at 350 degrees F, or until inserted knife comes out clean. Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting and eating.
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This is an adaptation of a recipe that called for Egg Beaters and evaporated milk -- neither of which I'm likely to have. The original receipt calls for cilantro, which would be good! But without that I substituted the minced green peppers.
Given the addition of flour to the mix, this thing puffs up a bit in the course of baking. Once it comes out of the oven and rests for 10 minutes or more, the puffing will sink down, level. And the knife cleanly inserted will reveal that the thing looks moist in there, but it's not uncooked. Once out of the oven, the eggs continue to cook. The lengthy 35-45 minute cooking time allows you to produce a browned 'skin' around the bottom. Excellent.
Fluffy eggs have never really been in my arsenal, but this, combined with the notion of quiche without fussing over a crust, is a winner in my household. Might could reduce the chili powder. Infinitely versatile, really.
I thought cured meat doesn't count as meat. Isn't that one of the rules?
If this is the dinner thread, we're taking advantage of the nice weather to grill fish.
Grilling fish sounds like a great idea. Or for vegetarians, grilling vegetables, including mushrooms.
My housemate has decided to foment the growth of fresh shiitake mushrooms, starting this year. It may take until next year for them to fruit. Probably will. But we'll see.
6: Celery can give it a crunch, although I don't know if it's common (it is for tuna salad).
Oh, tuna salad can be created in many ways: you've got your curried tuna salad (not much mayo, put some mustard in there, obviously curry powder plus minced red onion, red and/or green peppers if you want); also tuna salad with walnuts and red grapes, which is exactly what it sounds like. I do like that.
Anyway, I don't like celery in almost anything. Or red walnuts and red grapes in tuna salad.
I love all that shit in my tuna.
Do walnuts come in red? I might like those, if they existed.
23: I'm a purist on tuna. Mayo and nothing else. While I realize not everybody agrees with me on that, I've actually published that recipe in a cookbook. That's the kind of thing that happens when people in an office say, "Let's make an office cookbook as a fundraiser" and send out a request for recipes to a group that includes 25 year-old guys.
Tuna is a pain in the ass if there's cats in the house.
I'm not sure if I like ham salad or not. I'm always unable to get past the visual on it.
27: Most cats surveyed preferred tuna to egg with a ratio of all to none.
What is ham salad? Is that like deviled ham? Chopped up ham mixed with mayo? When did chopped animal protein plus mayo become "salad"? That said, I do love egg salad.
I've always been completely inept at peeling hard boiled eggs. Once in a rare while it will all come off nicely, but generally I'm stuck picking little bits of shell off the egg and getting bits of egg white everywhere.
For the hard boiled egg haters, have you had them done right? That is not boiled into oblivion but left so that the yolk still is moist and has a hint of softness. Add a bit of salt and pepper or home made mayo, and yum.
The only trick to peeling hardboiled eggs is older eggs. If they've been sitting in the fridge a week or two (or if they weren't super fresh when you bought them), they're still perfectly fresh for eating purposes, but they've lost some water through the shell, and there's an air gap that makes them peel easily when you hard boil them.
30: Yes, it is chopped up ham mixed with mayo. And if you think of egg/tuna/ham salad as being like potato salad or pasta salad, it doesn't seem that different of a use of the term "salad."
32: Shit. Too late to age the eggs for Easter. Maybe I'll go to the crappy grocery store and hope for stale.
33: Yeah, I know. It's just that I can't help but think that the original definition of "salad" was something including vegetables, which potato is, and pasta salad often includes some vegetables, if only minimally. But sure, there is chicken salad, egg salad, tuna salad, shrimp salad, crab salad, salmon salad...and Jello salad. No beef salad or pork salad, though?
I like a ham sandwich with just ham and a bit of mayo. So I suppose that's why I like the ham salad just fine. Or vice versa, I guess.
Forget a knife or food processor. Best way to chop egg whites or yolks for egg salad is with a potato masher.
35: That might be what it meant way back at the beginning (herba salata), but I think there have been long periods when greens were not taken as the core of the salad. I remember reading Romaji Diaries (Japan, 1900s/1910s), where the diarist mentioned eating salad in the hospital, and a footnote said that this almost certainly meant something like potato salad or tuna salad, rather than green salad, because those were the first salads introduced to Japan.
I saw somebody on tv make a bread salad. It didn't look like something I'd want to eat.
It looked like stuffing somebody forgot to cook.
I do not eat hard-boiled eggs or mayo-based salads. I'm going to have to do deviled eggs that won't be as good as Lee's aunts were for Easter, I suspect.
We grilled fish (swordfish shouldn't go with ras al hanout again, per Lee, but was otherwise enjoyed by both children and guests), chicken, and veggies ( onion, snow peas, cherry tomatoes, small bell peppers) and it felt like real spring. So of course I hear that snow is in tomorrow's forecast.
Deviled eggs makes me wonder whether mayo or paprika is the evil part.
40: Hm, interesting. I am aware through acquaintances and restaurants that Japanese-style potato salad is distinct from American style, in having more substantial pieces of (non-potato) vegetables in it, and having much less of the sweet/tangy flavor in its base. Also, it's used as a filling in sandwiches, which fits right in with the egg/tuna/chicken etc. salad genre.
I'm going to have to do deviled eggs
You can make deviled eggs with olive oil (and perhaps a little bit of lemon) and mustard if you don't like mayo. It turned out quite well the last time I did that.
48: Right, there's no mayo in these. Mustard, sour cream, bacon, green olives, paprika. Apparently once I got it in just the right proportions and every time since has been a let-down.
45.last: Made me look at the forecast. It's going to freeze Tuesday. I'm glad I don't have my tomatoes out yet. Also glad that I'm not gardening at all.
Apparently once I got it in just the right proportions and every time since has been a let-down.
Ah, yes, there are recipes that I've had that experience with.
I've always felt a bit squeamish about eating an egg that still looks like an egg. Mixed into cookies, cakes, or other baked goods? No problem. But hard-boiled and sliced in half and just eaten like that? or fried up sunny-side-up with the yellow just oozing all over a piece of buttered toast? Er, no. (It is to shudder.) I freely admit that this is not a rational, this is not a reasonable, response.
I love egg salad, but: the egg has to be very finely minced, and mixed in with tiny bits of celery and green onion, and all well-coated with mayonnaise, and well-seasoned with salt and pepper. Those new "artisanal" egg salads, where you're supposed to enjoy hearty bits of egg white tossed with mustard and mustard greens, or what have you? Dear God, no.
Well if you like egg only if it doesn't look like an egg, could I interest you in some Balut? Make sure to click on the pics to get a nice idea of how non-egg like it is.
I don't think there are any foods from a European tradition that I'd say I'm squeamish about, though there are some I dislike, e.g. beer or stewed red cabbage. In any case, how did you survive childhood? Didn't your mom regularly serve you eggs?
Well if you like egg only if it doesn't look like an egg
Oh lord. I heard about these a long time ago, from a native of a country where these are eaten, but I never saw a photo and was under the impression they were much more, um, regular-egg-like. Like, mostly egg-like with maybe some faint outlines of what's to come. Not.
Prosciutto isn't very much meat.
You still have to slaughter a whole pig to get it. (My friend who worked in a pork pie factory could never eat pig products again.)
Classic Czech potato salad, as served at Christmas with carp, is egg, potato, gherkins, and other things. It's nicely eggy and yet still quite crunchy and sharp.
55: The surgically-harvested kind from still-living pigs is way expensive.
46: japanese potato salad is way good but it is sweet as HAIL like all japanese mayo is.
parsimon: nobody should ever eat green peppers. ever.
to the OP: cut up your eggs aaaack the horror! crushing? smushing? no. nononononono. get a egg slicer!
I like my eggs fried in a very precise, I think maybe gross way, basically charred on the outside but with the yolk still runny. Only my dad does it exactly right. That is what I have to say about eggs right now. Egg salad is great though.
I love egg salad, but the labor/enjoyment ratio is too low for me (mostly because I have to share; egg salad is unlike most recipes in that the labor is almost directly proportional to the number of servings, whereas, e.g., fried eggs take nearly identical effort to make 1 or 4). If I knew that every egg would peel well, I might revisit that opinion.
Back in college I used to make deviled eggs entirely from ingredients pocketed at the cafeteria: hard boiled eggs, mayo packets, and Grey Poupon packets. A great late night treat.
Supposedly eggs are easier to peel if you crack the shells before chilling them in ice water, but I haven't found that to work perfectly.
As it happens, I showed Kai balut eggs at the store on Saturday, but I actually had no idea what they were. Now I do.
Gross. I know that, rationally it's not gross, but... gross.
My wife is a big fan of hard boiled eggs on hand; I enjoy them, but rarely thing of them in the fridge. Having them already made would make egg salad more appealing.
I wondered if this post might be Passover related, or veer that way. Hardboiled eggs, and in fact a roasted egg on the Seder plate are traditional.
So it's snowing in Chicago for the first night of Passover.
April snow, but no Yukio Mishima references in this crowd, I'm afraid.
31: For the hard boiled egg haters, have you had them done right? That is not boiled into oblivion but left so that the yolk still is moist and has a hint of softness
The problem is the hard-boiled egg whites, unfortunately, so it matters not what's happening with the yolk.
Do not over boil the eggs, seive them fine, and mix with a good amount of the best butter you can find. Butter the cut face of a loaf of brown bread and then cut the slice, so they are extremely thin, repeat as needed, fill with the salad.
Or use homemade mayonnaise, on levain. Thinness of bread less critical.
Rye crackers with the butter version, could add a bit of dill.
Eggs are basically a butter delivery vehicle and should therefor only be scrambled to allow optimal incorporation of the butter into the egg. Runny eggs and hard-boiled eggs are both anathema.
Agree with underlying principle of 71, but drawing wrong conclusions and clearly buttering your soldiers insufficiently. Also, see mayonnaise for critical role played by eggs wrt other fats.
should therefor only be scrambled to allow optimal incorporation of the butter cream cheese into the egg
I've just recalled that I've known some who declare that sour cream -- brought to room temperature -- must be combined with the eggs for best results in both scrambled eggs and omelettes.
I'll concede mayonaise, but I bow to no one in the buttering of my soldier--although I don't really see what that has to do with eggs.
How else do you eat your soft boiled eggs???
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Eggs can be a delivery vehicle for either butter or mayonnaise. I did not like egg salad or scrambled eggs when I was a child. That changed when I learned about making egg salad with butter and less mayo, and when I learned about incorporating mayo into the beaten eggs before scrambling it.
Wait. You can put mayo in scrambled eggs. Why was I not informed of this until now?
Cream in scrambled eggs, yes (in addition to butter). Mayonnaise therein, no.
77: Mostly safe for work version. Because cropping.
I had a weird egg shell allergy as a very little kid that basically morphed into a general disdain for eggs not mixed up in baked goods. Only within the past decade or so have I learned to like scrambled eggs and omelets, but I still harbor a violent and visceral abhorrence of hard-boiled eggs and egg salad. It probably doesn't help that I can't think of egg salad without remembering it stuck in the braces of junior high kids. Shudder.
Mayo in scrambled eggs? I like cream, sour or not, and butter in scrambled eggs, but I also like not whisking my scrambled eggs some of the time. Instead I just scramble them in the hot buttery pan, getting a nice mix of semi distinct whites and eggs all jumbled up together rather than a jumbled up omelet. I also don't like the super slow cooking method. If I want custard I'll make custard.
But you can't tell if the vagina is lab-grown.
83: I like the super slow cooking method, but have no patience for it.
I don't particularly like eggs. TWYRCL finds this bizarre.
Bizarre compared to the whole grown-man-Batman-fanatic thing?