The Glories of Egg Salad
Once, while in South Carolina, I was helping my sister Judi with something...can't recall now, but it was time for lunch and she said, "ohhh, let's have EGG SALAD sandwiches!" She was so excited. I shrugged my shoulders. I don't think I'd eaten egg salad sandwiches in a good decade or more. With typical Judi efficiency she boiled some eggs, peeled and mashed them and quickly made egg salad sandwiches. I still remember the taste because it was so incredibly good. It's something that harkens back to my childhood: egg salad sandwiches on white bread in the kitchen on Meadow Lane, and even more evocative memories of egg salad sandwiches wrapped in wax paper on the beach in Maine. Ahhhh.
So, have I had egg salad since that day with Judi? I don't think so, but being on this Whole 30 adventure has made me appreciate the perfection of a boiled egg more than I had in a long time. It doesn't hurt that my husband seems to cook them perfectly. I swear...I try the same technique and it never works as well. It's as though the eggs are under his spell, just as when he scrambles them. Sigh.
By far the hardest meal for me to pull together on this Whole 30 is weekend lunches. We usually don't eat lunch on the weekends but if we don't while on this we pay for it with hunger so great that I want to kill somebody. Being hungry doesn't seem to make Ernie as incensed as it does me. What can I say?
There wasn't much in the refrigerator yesterday. I poked around and finally pulled out some eggs, some sugar snap peas and a lemon. I directed Ernie as he whipped up some homemade mayo and then I made a plain old egg salad...no fancy ingredients, and added a handful of sugar snap peas. I think it was one of the best lunches I've eaten in eons.
Eons, I tell you, eons.
I've made homemade mayo in the past successfully, but then I've also had failures. This recipe couldn't be simpler, as they all are really...I think the key is to drizzle the oil in very, very slowly. I made our mayo, well, er, Ernie made our mayo, in the food processor. I poured the oil in the white thingy that fits in the feed tube as it has a fine hole at the bottom and regulated it for me. I found this recipe a bit too salty. I also didn't use that much lemon as I wanted to keep it nice and thick. In hindsight, less salt, more lemon than I used, but it was DAMN good regardless.
HOMEMADE PALEO OLIVE OIL MAYO
from Melissa Joulwen's Well Fed, Ingredients for a Happy Life
1 egg
2 tablespoons lemon juice @ room temp
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup plus 1 cup light-tasting olive oil (Not extra virgin. Try Filippo Berio or Bertoli.)
note: You can also use avocado oil instead of olive oil.
1. Place the egg and lemon juice in a blender or food processor. Let them come to room temperature together, about 30-60 minutes. Add the dry mustard, salt, and 1/4 cup of the oil. Whirl until well mixed–about 20 to 30 seconds.
2. This is the important part: The only remaining job is to incorporate the remaining 1 cup oil into the mixture. To do this, you must pour very slowly… the skinniest drizzle you can manage and still have movement in the oil. This takes about three minutes or so. Think about three minutes during a workout; it’s a fairly long time. Breathe. Relax. Drizzle slowly.
If you’re using a blender, you’ll hear the pitch change as the liquid starts to form the emulsion. Eventually, the substance inside the blender will start to look like regular mayonnaise, only far more beautiful. Do not lose your nerve and consider dumping! Continue to drizzle. If your ingredients were all at room temperature and you were patient, you will be rewarded!