When things are quiet around here, one of two things usually happens: I’m busy on a side project or traveling far from the physical Smitten Kitchen. Or I’m really obsessed with eating something I don’t expect anyone but me to care about. This month we have two for two. In the three weeks leading up to my short trip to San Francisco and Napa last week, I was absolutely obsessed with this sandwich. Fixed! I longed for it every day. Sometimes it was breakfast; sometimes it was lunch. I could walk past a bagel shop teeming with warm kernels, walk past a cloud of Bodega bacon egg and cheese sandwiches, and still go straight home to get started a cold boiled egg on a bun with arugula. I know I don’t make sense I decided to keep this weird thing to myself, but then I came back from California and yes, I had a suitcase full of Model Bakery English muffins and a stash of Dandelion Chocolate hot chocolate mix and I still needed this. I’ve finally accepted that the only way to keep going, at least long enough so that I can tackle the rest of the amazing things I have on our cooking schedule for the summer, is to drive it out, if anyone’s up for it joining my strangeness little concern or not.

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Think of it like a deviled egg, an unmixed, or a deconstructed egg salad sandwich. The essentials here are a sliced, almost hard-boiled egg (I’ll stop at 9.5 minutes), a challah bun or slices (but brioche or a potato bread would do), a large handful of arugula, and what I have for the perfect sandwich holds spread – some mayonnaise, spicy dijon, coarse dijon and prepared horseradish. A dash of hot sauce is not unwelcome; The mixture should be spicy. I always have a thin layer of something between the egg and the arugula and it’s almost always different, usually leftovers from a different dish – caramelized onions, pickled shallots, shaved fennel that I’ve tossed in lemon juice and olive oil, cucumber, etc Here’s some thinly sliced ​​cucumber and celery – and every single one is perfect. I cannot pick a favorite and will not ask you to. Please have fun with it.

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Until now

6 months ago: Baked Brie with Garlic Butter Mushrooms
1 year ago: Summer ricotta with grilled vegetables
2 years ago: Perfect, everlasting cornbread
3 years ago: beach bean salad
4 years ago: Raspberry crumble tart bar
5 years ago: Ice Cream Cake Roll
6 years ago: Strawberry Graham Icebox Cake and Broccoli Rubble Farro Salad
7 years ago: Almond Rhubarb Picnic Bars
8 years ago: Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake, Fake Shack Burger, and Swirled Berry Yoghurt Popsicles
9 years ago: Carrot salad with tahini and crispy chickpeas
10 years ago: Greek salad with lemon and oregano and two classic sangrias
11 years ago: Vidalia onion soup with wild rice and tzatziki potato salad
12 years ago: Classic Cobb Salad, Lime Yogurt Cake with Blackberry Sauce and Blue Cheese Spring Onion Cookies
13 years ago: Asparagus, lemon and goat cheese pasta and raspberry buttermilk cake
14 years ago: Martha’s Mac-and-Cheese, Crunchy Salted Oatmeal Cookies with White Chocolate
15 years ago: Upside Down Cherry Cornmeal Cake
16 years ago: Homemade oreos and cellophane pasta and roast pork salad

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Sliced ​​Egg Sandwich

  • 1/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 tablespoon smooth Dijon mustard
  • 2 teaspoons whole grain mustard
  • 2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 soft challah, brioche or potato rolls, divided or sliced ​​from a loaf
  • butter for toasting
  • 2 hard-boiled eggs, cold, peeled and sliced
  • Thinly sliced ​​cucumbers, celery, pickled onions [more suggestions in Notes]
  • 2 cups fresh arugula, roughly torn
Prepare spread: Combine mayo, Dijon, whole wheat mustard, and horseradish in a small bowl or jar. Season with salt and pepper as needed, and a squirt or two of hot sauce if you like. This makes a little more than you might need, but it will keep in the fridge for 1 to 2 weeks, so feel free to double it.

Toast your bread: While you can toast it in a toaster, my favorite way to toast my sandwich buns is to heat a knob of butter in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Place your rolls cut-side down in the pan. Cook until cut surfaces are golden brown, about 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a plate and allow to cool slightly before assembling the sandwiches.

Assemble: Spread both cut sides of the first roll generously with sandwich spread. Spread the egg slices on the bottom half and season lightly with salt and pepper. Add cucumbers or any of the other alternatives suggested below, plus a large handful of shredded arugula, then press down on the top of the roll to smooth everything out. Repeat with the rest of the sandwich.

Eat immediately and repeat daily as long as the fixation lasts. Personally, I head to the kitchen to make another one as soon as I hit publish.

Remarks:

  • eggs: Here’s my favorite method for hard boiled eggs. For a sliced ​​sandwich, I stop baking them after 9 minutes and 40 seconds so the center retains a dark, never-dry yellow. I love a solid egg slicer; I’ve had mine for over a decade.
  • spread: Just for reference, I use Hellman Mayonnaise, Amora Dijon Mustard, and Maille Whole Wheat Mustard, and I make my own prepared horseradish over Passover that I use for months afterwards. My current glass of Amora is incredibly spicy (almost like wasabi) and I love it, but just as a note that you may need to adjust ingredient amounts or spices to get the punch promised by other brands.
  • Roll: Any store bought bun will do though, but I recently made buns from my challah recipe and made 12 buns out of one of the two challahs. They bake in 15 minutes.
  • Additional ingredients: As mentioned above, I tend to add a thin layer of whatever I have left in the fridge to the sandwich, from pickled to caramelized onions, thinly sliced ​​cucumbers, celery, or fennel. None tasted bad.