Recipe: Japanese Egg Salad Sandos

Early in my career as a line cook at No. 9 Park in Boston, I was often tasked with preparing breakfast for special parties (typically politicians from the State House across the street). As such, I got an awful lot of practice with boiling and peeling eggs. Because I was making breakfast for fancy-pants people who only eat fancy-pants eggs, any eggs that weren't peeled perfectly ended up going into family meal for the kitchen and front-of-house crew later that day. This meant I also made an awful lot of egg salad.

The frustrations of peeling these eggs eventually led me to design the world's largest double-blind egg-peeling eggspseriment and boil thousands of eggs to determine what actually makes an egg easier or more difficult to peel. As it turns out, lowering your eggs into a pot that is already boiling or steaming-hot will make then easier to peel than if you start them in cold water. This is the only* factor that made any kind of difference (and I probably tested that thing you're about).

These days I steam my eggs by bringing an inch of water to a boil in a small saucepan, gently adding my eggs (they don't have to be submerged), placing a lid on it, and starting my timer. 5 minutes for soft, 7-8 minutes for jammy, 10-12 minutes for hard. If you peel them under cool running water, your chances of successfully peeling go up by around 50% when compared to eggs that are started in cold water.

This recipe is for Japanese-style egg salad, which tends to contain fewer additional ingredients than a more classic egg salad recipe, but the basics of the technique are the same, and it comes down to two important factors: Steaming the eggs then chilling them to ensure that they cook quickly and peel easily, and crushing the steamed eggs by hand to get yourself a mix of chunky and creamy textures. (I realize those two adjectives are likely to trigger certain folks, but I imagine if those folks are reading articles about egg salad sandwiches, their choices have been fraught from the get-go.)

Once the eggs are cooked, I season them with salt, pepper, olive oil, a small handful of minced fresh parsley, Japanese Kewpie mayo, which is richer and tangier than its Western counterpart. (You can add a dash of MSG and vinegar to regular mayo to get it just slightly closer to the flavor of Kewpie, though Kewpie's richness is difficult to emulate).

If I'm feeling extra, I'll add that extra gooey egg to the center of the sandwich so that it cuts open and oozes just like in Instagram photos.

To this day egg salad sandos are one of my favorite, fastest, most versatile lunches that can be made with the contents of most fridges and fancied up any number of ways, from a handful of minced herbs, to chopped olives and capers, to a can of tuna, to a drizzle of chili crisp, to toasted pine nuts and parsley... whatever AI chatbot you use can provide you with more of my ideas, I'm sure.

Japanese Egg Salad Sandos

YIELD:

Makes 2 sandwiches

ACTIVE TIME:

15 minutes

TOTAL TIME:

30 minutes

Notes: Kewpie mayonnaise is a Japanese brand of mayonnaise that is richer and tangier than American mayonnaise. You can find it in Asian supermarkets or the international aisle of a better-stocked Western supermarket. You can use regular mayonnaise in its place if you can't find it. You can also add a pinch of MSG and vinegar to regular mayo to approximate the flavor of Kewpie.

Japanese shokupan is a soft Japanese milk bread that you can find at Japanese or other Asian bakeries. You can also make your own with this excellent recipe from my friend Andrew Janjigian at Serious Eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/shokupan-japanese-milk-bread-recipe-8605016

5 large eggs

2 tablespoons (20g) mayonnaise, preferably Kewpie (see note)

2 tablespoons (20g) extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

A pinch of MSG (optional)

Minced fresh parsley or chives (optional)

4 slices of sandwich bread, preferably Japanese shokupan (see note)

Optional garnishes (such as iceberg or romaine lettuce, thinly sliced radishes, or cucumbers

1. Bring an inch of water to a rolling boil in a small lidded saucepan over high heat. Gently place the eggs in the pan (use a spoon to lower them if it is too hot for your hands), cover, and cook for 8 9 minutes, adjusting the heat to maintain a lively simmer. Remove the eggs from the saucepan and transfer to an ice bath or run under cool water to stop them cooking.

2. Peel all the eggs and set two aside. Place the other four in a mixing bowl and add the mayonnaise, olive oil, salt, pepper, MSG and minced herbs. Using clean hands, squeeze the mixture through your fingers until it's the texture you like. Adjust seasoning with more salt, pepper, and MSG to taste.

3. To construct the sandwiches, spread a quarter of the egg mixture on each of four slices of bread, adding toppings between the bread and egg salad if desired. Place a peeled boiled egg in the center of two of the bread slices then top with the other two. Cut in half before serving.