Smoked Egg Salad Recipe

Smoked Egg Salad Recipe Vivya Gugnani: Today, we’re bringing the flavors of Asia to your home for lunch. I’m Vivya Gugnani in New York, New York at Xie Xie which means thank you in Mandarin. And you’re going to thank us for making you this tasty sandwich. So, let’s go behind the burner and meet the chef. So, I’m here with chef owner Angelo Sosa. Angelo, what are we having today? Angelo Sosa: So, we are going to make a Taiwanese Smoked Egg Salad. First and foremost, what we’re going to do is hard-boiled egg. What I like to do is I like to boil the eggs for 12 minutes. Vivya Gugnani: 12 minutes, very precise. Angelo Sosa: 12 minutes. Everybody has her own little techniques but this works for me. What I do is I boil it for 12 minutes, take it off the burner and just let it sit for a total of four minutes so it steeps and then we don’t rinse it and then we just crack the eggs open. This is a traditional Taiwanese dish, okay. And what we’re going to do is after the eggs are boiled, we’re going to take a combination of soy sauce, water, smoked bacon. The smoked bacon is going to give it the depth as well as the soy sauce okay. This is a light soy sauce. I prefer to work with light I supposed to a regular aged soy sauce because soy sauce could be very salty, it can very saline if you will. Vivya Gugnani: Alright, so a good tip is use a light soy sauce and it will be salty. Angelo Sosa: Correct, correct. Smoked bacon as I said, ginger, thyme, cardamom, green cardamom. Vivya Gugnani: But those aren’t typical spices that are used in Indian cooking as well. Angelo Sosa: Exactly, exactly. Middle-eastern Indian, Asian and then we have the star anise. So, this is a very, very simple application. Eggs are boiled. You’re going to take all of these ingredients, the bacon, the soy sauce, all these mélange of spices and the herbs. You got to let them just put that into a pot, okay. Vivya Gugnani: Makes it easy. Angelo Sosa: So, I made it like a simple cookery. So, whenever people come in, they’re like, “Oh, this is so complex.” This is literally like three steps and it’s done, okay. Vivya Gugnani: We like that. Angelo Sosa: Okay. And literally, just take everything, put it in a pot okay. The cooking is very critical. You want to cook at a very, very low like soft boil for about two hours. Cooking time is very critical because you really want the spices to infuse. If you over boil it, the spices are going to peak and then they’re going to dissipate very quickly. Thoroughly I supposed to we’re an Asian concept I suppose making a regular—we’re going to kick it up a notch and we’re going to have a smoked egg salad. Top traditional ingredients, we have the red onion, celery for the texture. I love working with thyme and I love the floral aspect of it and we just implement then a Japanese mayonnaise to give it that Asian flare if you would. Vivya Gugnani: But if you don’t have any, you could use kind of store bought mayonnaise? Angelo Sosa: Yes, just regular mayonnaise, exactly. Hellmann’s is amazing. So, we’re just going to really chop the egg, cut it in half okay, as you could see, beautiful. Vivya Gugnani: Beautiful color. Angelo Sosa: Beautiful brownish color. There is no green on the exterior of the yolk right, we’re just going to chop this up. Vivya Gugnani: It’s that 12 minutes and four minutes. Angelo Sosa: Yes. So, what we do here, I just prefer to have a coarser salad, coarser egg salad so you could cut them however you prefer okay. I'm just going to cut them up. You’re going to literally just put them in the bowl and now we’re going to start mixing in the ingredients. Vivya Gugnani: So, I’m going to take some celery and red onion and all these mayonnaise? Angelo Sosa: I would say about half of it. I mean suit it to your own palate you know, if like a textural egg salad and make it you know, add more celery, onions Vivya Gugnani: Suit it to your palate or your waist. I say waist, I go half. Angelo Sosa: You lovely mix the egg salad, right? So now, what we’re going to do is we toasted the bread. We’re going to just put a little chili mayonnaise on it. As you can see, we took out the cavity of a top half of the bread. It’s a little trick we learned. Vivya Gugnani: I noticed that. That is a little trick. Angelo Sosa: You want to put in there? Vivya Gugnani I can do it, you’re putting me to work now. Angelo Sosa: Okay. Vivya Gugnani This is good. Angelo Sosa: So, she’s putting the egg salad in the cavity right there. Let’s put the pickled cabbage on the bottom. Vivya Gugnani: On this lung? Angelo Sosa: Yes, perfect. Vivya Gugnani: Okay, I like pickled cabbage so I’m going a little generous with that. Angelo Sosa: You add a lot more. Vivya Gugnani: Okay, I can? Angelo Sosa: Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Vivya Gugnani: Oh my God, this is like— Angelo Sosa: We’re in New York City, don’t be afraid. The pickled cabbage is done. Cilantro goes on top of that, so we have the acidity from the cabbage, the smokiness are from the eggs, the herbaceousness from the cilantro. Vivya Gugnani: I love cilantro. I can eat them with anything. Angelo Sosa: Now, we’re just going to put the chicken here. Vivya Gugnani: And what’s in the chicken? Angelo Sosa: Chicken is braced in the exact same broth that the eggs are cooked in. So, you have the smoked bacon and all those spices, coriander, cardamom, thyme. Vivya Gugnani: So, I need to see you wrap this up. Angelo Sosa: Wrap it? Vivya Gugnani: How are you going to get this thing to actually close? Angelo Sosa: So what we do, what we do here is— Vivya Gugnani: You don’t really close it Angelo Sosa: That’s it. Walla! It’s a done dill. Vivya Gugnani: That’s a beautiful looking sandwich. I’m ready to eat it. Angelo Sosa: Okay so here, we have the shredded braised chicken. It’s on a crispy baguette. The pickled cabbage, the smoked egg salad and cilantro. We’re going to eat it now. Vivya Gugnani: Come on and eat Angelo Sosa: Okay, take the skewer and I think it would be safe. Vivya Gugnani: You know, I was thinking that the skewer is holding it better because this is a big mouthful. Angelo Sosa: Okay. You get the smokiness of the egg salad, the acidy just coming in, it really just brighten in your palate and then just the salt the undertones of the chicken, very amazing. Vivya Gugnani: So, thanks so much for having us. Angelo Sosa: You’re very welcome, xie xie. Vivya Gugnani: Stay tuned to Behind the Burner while we give you the tips, tricks and techniques that are lighting the culinary world on fire. For the recipe, Q&A, photos and more, visit behindtheburner.com.