Egg Salad 101

Egg Salad
By The Covered Dish
Debbie Dance Uhrig

Brought to you by your neighborhood market
Harter House Supermarkets
and
Harter House World Flavors

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 The Ultimate egg!   In this cooks opinion it doesn't get much better than eggs.  Homemade egg salad, deviled eggs, poached eggs, hard boiled, over easy any way you name it eggs provide us with some wonderful protein.  Experienced cooks will probably look at the column this week and say:  'What-who doesn't know how to make egg salad?'  Well gang there's a great deal of folks who have never made this scrumptious down-home delicacy. 

How do you eat egg salad?  Well, I've been digging around and asking folks, here are some suggestions on how to enjoy this dish:

1.  Between two pieces of white bread, lettuce added, maybe a thin slice of tomato.

2.  With Crackers or inside celery.
3.  In a canapé.
4.  Stuffed inside a large tomato as a full meal.
5.  Piped into small cherry tomatoes.

Is there anything specific that goes in egg salad?  Well, boiled eggs are a must, ha!

I always use a pickle of some sort.  Usually I don't use dill; I'll pull out sweet or bread and butter most frequently.  Pimento is a nice choice for color.  For added zip consider horseradish and different mustards, small green onions, celery, olives, and sweet peppers.  In the spice department I sometimes like to take egg salad down the curry road for a different twist.  Paprika, peppers, garlic powder and different salts can also add their own zing. 

How you approach your dressing is all based upon personal choice.  If I'm in a hurry I just chop the eggs and pickles and throw in mayonnaise and pickle juice and that's it!  If I want a more glamorous approach I will reserve 3 or 4 egg yolks and blend them into the dressing.  This gives a nice color and taste to the entire salad.  You will note that I did not use any sugar in the dressing.  Sometimes you'll find cooks added just a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar to the dressing.  I was going to use a 'bit' of mustard in this recipe, but I enjoyed the taste without, so it was omitted.

Today when I chopped the eggs I chopped them using my egg slicer turning the eggs both ways.  This gave my salad a more uniform look versus a free hand chop. 

Isn't it funny how we can remember when and where we ate our best dishes.  I can remember driving to Colorado one summer and eating egg salad sandwiches all the way through the states of Kansas and Colorado!  I was convinced I was not going to spend money on fast food as I made my 13-14 hour journey to Steamboat Springs.  If you're on a budget egg salad is definitely a good choice for a family meal every other week or so.  Summer carry-in dinners would be complemented with a large dish of this salad.  You'll be surprised how fast it is consumed!

One of my biggest tips is directed towards the boiling of the eggs.  Your salad will look and taste better if you don't overcook the eggs.  My usual process is as follows:  Place eggs in cold water with 1-2 teaspoons of salt bringing eggs to a hard boil for ten minutes.  Remove from heat, drain off water and replace with cold water.  Shake the eggs around a bit cracking the shells.  Allow to cool in the cold water.  The water will find its way under the shell easing the removal later.  *Overcooked eggs turn green around the outer edges.  The longer they're overcooked the greener they will get.  Regarding the salt in the boiling water:  Many feel the salt added to the water helps the shell comes off easier.

Another method for boiling eggs is to bring the eggs to a hard boil, put a lid over the pot and then turn off the heat.  Leave eggs for about 20 minutes, and then cool.  I have never preferred this method.

Let's get to the recipe, it's easy, very tasty and oh so comforting.  Simply Yours, The Covered Dish.

Egg Salad 101

14 hard boiled eggs
   (Reserve 3 yolks for the dressing.)
1/2 cup finely chopped bread and butter pickles
1 tablespoon 'finely' chopped sweet onion
 

Dressing

3 reserved egg yolks1 cup mayonnaise1/8 cup pickle juice1/2 teaspoon Black Kettle Seasoning, (Substitute with a nice all-purpose seasoning salt.)1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper 

Yields:  5 cups of salad

Hard boil the eggs, cooling in cold water.  For uniformity chop the eggs using an egg slicer.

Reserve 3 yolks for the dressing.  Chop the eggs, pickles and onion and combine in a bowl.  Using a fork crumble the 3 egg yolks then add the remaining dressing ingredients.  Make the mixture extremely smooth.  Consider using a submersible hand blender to make it very creamy.  Gently stir the dressing into the eggs, pickles and onions.  Place in a container with a tight fitting lid.  Yum...

*If you don't want an abundance of egg salad certainly cut the recipe in half. 

Pizza Please

I met Debbie Uhrig a couple of months ago and absolutely LOVE her.
She is a "Foodie" for sure and so we had a lot in common to talk about.
Debbie is the chef and teacher at the Culinary & Craft School at Silver Dollar City in Branson. Visiting the Culinary School at Silver Dollar City is a must on my list!







The following is her most recent BLOG, and since I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE pizza, any shape or form, I just had to share this post with you.
Find out more about Debbie here; http://www.sdcculinarycraftschool.com/craftsmen-showcase/detail.aspx?id=-1


Pizza Please, April 2, 2012
The Covered Dish
Debbie Dance Uhrig
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Everyone loves pizza in all shapes and forms. With sauce or no sauce, standard mozzarella or more elite with asiago and gruyere. Whole wheat crusts, thin crusts, deep dish or the ever constant white flour crust. There's a crust, sauce and cheese to please every palate.

I thought I might give all of my readers a few tips to take the hustle bustle out of pizza night. How often do we know that we want to have pizza for supper? If you're like my family sometimes not until an hour before! The Italians will always allow their pizza dough to set for 24 hours before use. We Americans like to speed things up a bit by making it just when we need it. Let's look at some wonderful ways to have your pizza dough ready in a snap.

One thing I like to do is to roll my pizza dough out and pre bake the crusts for about 7-9 minutes at 425 degrees. Allow them to cool and freeze on end inside a large Ziploc bag. If you keep pepperoni and pre-cooked sausage on hand your pizzas will come together very quickly. You can freeze the pizza dough without pre-baking but the crusts are more fragile to handle.

If you decide to use whole wheat flour in your regular bread dough recipe here's a tip: Remember that whole wheat flour absorbs liquid at a different ratio than white flour. Peter Reinhart, the great bread guru, says to add 2 more tablespoons of the liquid for every cup of whole wheat flour in a recipe. You'll want to do the same if you use Semolina Flour in the pizza dough. Semolina is preferred by many for pizzas and pastas because of its wonderful elasticity. Semolina comes from hard durum wheat so you may need to add a tad more liquid. Also a quick note on the olive oil: The olive oil tenderizes the dough.


Let's chatter about the use of fresh vegetables on your pizza. A couple of weeks ago we ordered a take home pizza. It was the first time in months that I didn't make it myself. Ervin, my husband, and I got a supreme with lots of vegetables. The pizza looked beautiful but after my first bite I realized something was up. There were rings of pepper and onion, fresh mushrooms and slices of roma tomatoes over the top along with the meat etc. The vegetables had released so much moisture that the pizza tasted watery. It is often a good idea to sauté some of the vegetables and pat them dry before putting them on the pizza. Don't get me wrong if I do an onion, mushroom and sausage pizza I don't cook the onion and mushroom first. However when the pizza is covered with lots of vegetables some will be cooked in order to remove the access moisture.

Cheese: The most economical way to go is to use block or sliced cheese. Shredded cheese always has cellulose powder added to keep the cheese from clumping. In defense of the cellulose powder this is necessary with pre-shredded cheese. If you're making pizzas for young people stick with Mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. For adults you can play around with more creative avenues. Don't rule out asiago, feta, gruyere, havarti, provolone and blue cheese. You probably don't want a pizza covered with feta, but a few sprinkles would be a nice enhancement, same thing with blue cheese.

A couple of years ago I could make (one) sausage pizza for $3.85 per pizza. Now I'd have to change that up to probably $4.50 per pizza. As the kids mature you want them to hang out at your house. Stack the freezer full of pre cooked sausage and hamburger and pre made crusts. You can even cheat and instead of making your own sauces keep canned sauce on hand 24/7. Grandparents may want to make lots of 'small' pizzas so the little ones can make their own pizzas.

Pizza means family, fun and friendships. Invite the baseball team, the acteens at church, girl scouts and your neighbors for a fun night of PIZZA! Have a fun filled week!! Simply yours, The Covered Dish.










Debbie's Pizza Crust
1 (1/2 tablespoon) quick rise yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup warm water
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons of olive oil,
1-2 tablespoons cornmeal

You can dissolve the yeast in water, but if you use quick yeast you can actually put it in dry! Add the sugar, oil and half the flour together with the yeast and water. (If you dissolve the yeast in the water the water should be 'baby bottle' warm.) Add the remainder of the flour and the salt. Knead into a ball and place in a bowl. Spray the top of the dough with vegetable spray and allow to rise. (20-30 minutes). Roll the dough out in the cornmeal and maybe a dash of flour. Spray the stone or pizza plate and continue stretching the dough to fit, trimming. This recipe will make enough dough for 2 pizzas or one large jelly roll pan. Using a fork poke holes all over the dough, this is called 'docking'. You can even purchase dockers for pizza making, but a fork still works best for me. This gets out all the air bubbles. Bake the dough in a 400 degree oven for about 7 minutes to seal the crusts. At this point you would continue making the pizza or..Allow it to cool and freeze the crust.

**Quick rise yeasts were originally invented to go be put into a recipe with the flour, not into water. When we do place them in water it will take a 2nd rise to get them going because the water actually 'dilutes' them down. We could get more scientific on this, but we'll leave it at that.

**Feel free to divide the flour in half and use part semolina to white flour.