Umami Egg Salad on Homemade Sourdough #FoodieExtravaganza

This month, the Foodie Extravaganza celebration is all about eggs, hosted by Karen's Kitchen Stories.  We celebrate various food holidays and, this month, we are celebrating eggs because June 3rd is National Egg Day. Check out everyone's recipes with eggs...

• Baked Scotch Eggs from Making Miracles
• Balaleet (Emirati Sweet Vermicelli and Egg Omelet) from Tara's Multicultural Table
• Country Biscuit Breakfast (Copycat) from Palatable Pastime
• Pathare Prabhu Style Egg Drop Curry from Sneha's Recipe
• Smoky Honey Chili & Paprika Deviled Eggs  Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice 
• Sourdough Waffles and Eggs from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Soy Braised Pork with Eggs from Food Lust People Love
• Spanish Tortilla from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Umami Egg Salad on Homemade Sourdough from Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Umami Egg Salad on Homemade Sourdough

Years ago I attended an event that featured Nancy Silverton, Ruth Reichl, and Evan Kleiman called The Foodie Edition. Silverton talked about her views of a dinner party and shared one of the recipes she would put out on the table: Egg Salad with Anchovy Toasts. Once I finally got around to making it, I understood why it was a staple on her table; it quickly became a standard on mine. This version of my umami egg salad was part of my Mothers' Day brunch on the patio. Yum.

Recently, I've delved into making my own sourdough bread. It's one good thing to come out of the shelter-in-place orders to flatten the curve of the coronavirus pandemic. I'll share this particular sourdough recipe soon, but for now, this post will be about the egg salad, this deliciously savory, umami-rich salad.

A couple of things to note. Silverton said the best way to cook eggs is to boil them for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat completely and let the eggs cool in the cooking water. Reichl chimed in that you can also steam eggs for about 25 minutes instead of boiling them. That was a new one for me; I'll give it a try one of these days. But the 5 minute boil-cool method works well for me.

Silverton tears her cooled eggs instead of chopping them. I gave it a shot. She was very specific - the whites into six pieces and the yolk into three pieces. I definitely wasn't that precise.

What really makes this recipe outstanding is the bagna cauda. Bagna cauda, literally translated as "hot bath," this dipping sauce appears in many Italian homes as part of the Christmas feast. Traditionally it's served with cardoons (you can read a little bit about cardoons in this post), but any vegetables will do. Diners dip the cardoons into the sauce and eaten with a slice of bread held to catch the drippings. When the bread is soaked with sauce, they eat it, too. And you start all over again. It's delicious and wonderful. So, I love that Silverton's recipe gives the toast a healthy drizzle of bagna cauda.

Ingredients

Bagna Cauda

• 1/2 C butter
• 1/2 C olive oil
• 20 anchovy filets (I used a 2 oz can of oil-packed anchovies)
• 10 to 12 garlic cloves, peeled and pressed

Egg Salad

• 12 large, hard-boiled eggs
• 1 T salt
• 1/2 C garlic mayonnaise (recipe below)
• freshly ground pepper for serving

Garlic Mayonnaise

• 2 t vinegar (I used a white wine vinegar)
• 2 t freshly lemon juice
• 3/4 C canola oil
• 1/4 C olive oil
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 garlic clove, peeled and pressed
• 1 t salt

Serving

• homemade sourdough bread
• freshly ground black pepper

Procedure

Bagna Cauda

Combine all of the ingredients in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until the anchovies dissolve and the garlic is soft and fragrant, approximately 5 to 6 minutes. Keep stirring so the garlic Remove from the heat and let the bagna cauda rest in the pan. Before serving, stir to recombine the ingredients.

Garlic Mayonnaise

Whisk the canola and olive oils together. Whisk together the vinegar and lemon juice. Place egg yolk in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Add the garlic and salt and blend until the yolk is pale yellow, approximately 30 seconds. Add a few drops of the oil and pulse to incorporate the oil into the egg mixture. With the machine running, drizzle in the 1/4 C oil slowly until the egg and oil are emulsified. Turn off the food processor, remove the lid, scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, and pour in one-third of the vinegar-lemon juice mixture. Return the lid and pulse to combine. Repeat, adding 1/4 C oil at a time and 1/3 of the acid until you have used them all. You will end up with a thickened garlic mayonnaise.

Egg Salad

Tear the eggs in half to separate the whites from the yolks. Break the yolks in thirds and the whites into sixths. Place all of the pieces into a mixing bowl. Sprinkle the eggs with salt. Add the garlic mayonnaise and stir aggressively with a rubber spatula until combined. 

To Serve

Give the bagna cauda a stir and spoon 1 T on each piece of bread. Spoon egg salad onto the toasts and sprinkle with black pepper. Serve with more bagna cauda for diners to drizzle on as needed.