Hard
boil eggs for 10 minutes (if you boil them too long they become
sulfuric). Take the pot to the sink and run cold water over them to cool them to the core. Make sure you do this as it prevents the outside of the yolk from
mysteriously turning that nasty shade of black. Peel the eggs and rinse them to remove any tiny bits of shell you may have missed. Then take them to your cutting board. Rough chop. By rough chop, I mean cut them in fairly large pieces. This is not a smashed egg salad, the egg should be distinct. Using the
back of the knife, so as not to dull the blade, slide the egg from the board into a bowl.
Cut lots of scallions into very thin rounds. Scrape these into the bowl. Now mince a little fresh garlic and add that. The proportions are such that if I were using 10 eggs, I might cut 4 scallions and use two small cloves of garlic.
Now add a little Dijon mustard. Not too much, just enough to complement the flavour of the egg. Add some mayonnaise. Use a good brand of mayonnaise (or better yet, make homemade mayonnaise). Don’t make it too wet. Add a little, stir and check the consistency. The biggest problem with egg salad sandwiches is that they are almost always too wet and so when you pick them up, the egg oozes out of sides of the sandwich into your hands, onto your plate, or worse still, into your lap. Messy food! Not good! Either that or people make it too wet and then don’t put enough egg salad on the bread and the flavour and point is lost. Anyway, take it easy with the mayonnaise, stir well and then add a little salt. Be careful. If you don't know how much salt to add, taste as you go…it’s all too easy to over-salt eggs. Eggs are rich but subtle. Then add some freshly cracked black peppercorn.
I have found that the best bread for this is a very fresh sourdough bread with a good crust. Butter the bread from edge-to-edge. I'm not kidding, be deliberate. Butter it edge-to-edge! Don't even bother if you're not going to butter it edge-to-edge. Spread the egg salad quite thickly on the bread and then top it with several leaves of crisp, crisp Romaine Lettuce. Dust the lettuce with salt and cracked pepper.
Slice and serve with a crunchy kosher dill pickle and maybe some Clamato juice (Vodka optional.) The flavour is outstanding, as is the contrast in texture from the creaminess of the egg salad, the freshness of the bread, the firmness of the crust, to the crunch of the lettuce and pickle…..Oooooh.