Great Day for Eggs
It's literally the Ovum Olympics
Hi! New here? Welcome! So glad you hopped by (get it??). There’s an excellent recipe in PDF and plain text at the bottom, if you want to scrollllll straight there.
Hello to all my baby bunnies!
Here’s a true story about what happens in my parent’s house on Easter weekend (I’m here now, so this is very fresh).
There’s a leg of lamb marinating with onions, garlic, rosemary, and red wine vinegar in the basement fridge.
Carole, my mom, has already started working on her pizza rustica, so there’s ricotta, sausage, prosciutto, and a hot water dough in various stages of doneness in the kitchen.
My dad, Frank, is going to start prepping artichokes soon for my mom’s famous pasta ripieni con carciofi. The besciamella and tomato sauce are already in the fridge, but I promise to get up early tomorrow to document the pasta-making and assembly!
We have already bemoaned the lack of rhubarb at the market, but there’s a ricotta-wheatberry cake and a carrot cake in the pipeline. The strawberry-rhubarb galette will have to wait.
And of course, there are eight dozen hard-boiled eggs in the fridge.
Tomorrow, we will decorate eggs with my kids, my niece and my nephew. There’s an old salad spinner bowl filled with crayons in a cabinet that we drag out for exactly this purpose, after covering the table with newspaper, setting out cooling racks for drying the eggs, dissolving the egg dye, and finding the little jar of rubber bands that we use for creating tie-dye patterns.
I’m a geometric pattern kind of gal. My dad will draw cartoon characters for the little kids, and he always does a cartoon version of everyone who will be at the table. Those go into little egg cups (of course my mom has an adorable collection!) and they serve as name cards. My sister always does cool overlapping colors, and Cosmo does whatever takes the least amount of time. On Sunday we’ll deposit these all over the backyard for an egg hunt, and I think my nephew Remo is finally big enough to give his older sister a run for her money.
And then on Monday morning, when we are all getting ready to drive back to Brooklyn, my mom will insist we all take some of the leftover hard-boiled eggs. A couple dozen eggs each, make no mistake. Sure, there will be a peeled egg or two sprinkled with salt in my future, but this year I decided to create an actual recipe for these eggs, who deserve their own resurrection (see what I did there?).
I love deviled eggs and I don’t get to eat them enough, so that was my first thought. Then for whatever reason, pimento cheese came into my head—this is a dip I also don’t make enough but whenever I see it I go nuts. Both of these things are great on a platter, for an appetizer or a brunch party or hors d’oeuvres. But I’ve never put them together. That’s where Deviled Pimento Egg Salad Sliders got their conceptual start. Do these already exist??? LMK!
Egg salad is fine, but an egg salad sandwich is the unspoken, ultimate destiny. It’s just physics: unlike a deviled egg, you can’t pick egg salad up with your hands. I mean, you could, but … not nice at Easter or the subsequent Feaster (see what I did there??).
For the ideal Deviled Pimento Egg Salad delivery, I went with the new Dave’s Killer Bread Organic Rock ‘N’ Rolls—they’ve got texture from grains and seeds, which feels very spring to me, with all the sprouting that’s going on. They’re fluffy but not as smushy as a potato roll, and they’re a smidge sweet, which is a good foil for the sharp cheddar and cayenne I used in the mix. (If you’ve ever had the organic 21 Whole Grains and Seeds Bread, you already know how good this is for a sandwich.) A layer of iceberg brings crunch to the fluffy-chewy-creamy textures already in play, the same move I deploy for my crispy fish sandwich, smashburger, and countless other sandwiches.
If you’re sitting on a glut of eggs or just have some spring flings in your future, I can’t recommend this combo enough.
Big thanks to Dave’s Killer Bread for supporting Food Processing and sponsoring this newsletter!
xoCLM
New! Recipe 3.29.2024
Deviled Pimento Egg Salad Sliders
Makes 12
Whether you’re about to celebrate Easter or have a glut of hard-boiled eggs from the egg hunt, this recipe is ideal for a crowd. Dave’s Killer Bread Organic Rock ‘N’ Rolls are sized for sliders or snacks, and boast great textural contrast between the fluffy roll and all the grains and seeds (21!). Because there’s a tiny bit of sweetness, they’re a perfect pair for a slightly spicy egg salad mix. My inspiration was a mashup between deviled eggs and pimento cheese—two things I am always excited to find on a party platter. The egg mix is tangy from hot sauce, smoky from cayenne and paprika, rich from sharp cheddar, and a slab of iceberg delivers crunch. Cosmo loved these as a breakfast sandwich and I devoured one before dinner, proof that they’ll go the distance from brunch to supper.
8 large eggs
4 ounces sharp cheddar
½ cup mayonnaise, plus more for rolls
½ cup pimento peppers, drained
Small bunch of chives
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon cayenne
Kosher salt
Tabasco, to taste
1 package Dave’s Killer Bread Organic Rock N Rolls (12 rolls)
1 small head iceberg lettuce
Fit a pot with a steamer basket and pour in a few inches of water. Bring to a simmer, then add the eggs and cover the pot. Steam the eggs for 11 minutes, then transfer to a bowl of ice water to cool. This is the easiest and most foolproof way to hard boil eggs; if you’ve never steamed eggs, this is your sign!
In the meantime, coarsely grate the cheese (you should have a generous cup). Finely chop the pimentos (alternately, you can use a food processor with the grating attachment, and then switch to the blade for the peppers). Thinly slice the chives. Set aside separately.
Peel the eggs. Place them in a large bowl and use a serving fork or potato masher to break them up into medium pieces (if you’re using a food processor, pulse until coarsely chopped). Transfer the eggs to a large bowl and add the mayonnaise, chives, paprika, cayenne, and reserved pimentos). Use a large spatula to toss everything together (try not to compact the egg mixture). Add a few dashes of Tabasco and fold in the cheese. Taste the mixture and season to taste with salt, then toss again to combine.
The egg mixture is excellent right when it’s made, but the flavors will deepen and meld if you cover and chill for 1 hour and up to a full day in advance. This is a nice strategy when hosting—get it out of the way!
To assemble, use a long serrated knife to slice the rolls into a top and bottom half. Hold the blade parallel to your cutting board and use a sawing motion to do this, as you would split a cake layer. (If that’s too fussy, simply tear the rolls apart and then cut them in half.) Lightly toast the rolls and spread mayonnaise on both halves. Cut the iceberg into ½-inch slices and layer the bottom half with the lettuce, then spoon the egg mixture on top. Close up the rolls and use a serrated knife to cut into individual sandwiches.
I've never really been interested in egg salad but for some reason the combo with a david's bread roll really makes me want to try it.
An eggcellent recipe indeed!