The Leviathan or the Egg

Today's entry brought to you by egg salad, and also tea tumblers.


History


The first egg was discovered as a fossil somewhere in the Russian wasteland of Minnesota.  The scientists who uncovered it debated its purpose for some time, not entirely sure why anyone would need something shaped sort of like a sphere but not really, because until then all they worked with was spheres (hence the current bias in modern physics for perfect spheres in problems, and also because you can put them in your pants and look Mongolian, which was a compliment in those days).

Finally, after the egg fossil had been passed around a while, a Biblical scholar by the name of Raymond Banes decided it had to be the intended offspring of the Leviathan.  The egg was revitalized with voodoo magic, and from it came a chicken.  Raymond Banes took credit for this discovery, and then doused the second ever chicken in Greek fire.  It turned out to be delicious, and Raisin' Cane's was born.

Professional Egg Salad


Okay, so it's not, per se, professional.  It is, however, pretty good for minimal effort (I got in a couple levels of Super Mario World 2 in the downtime), cheap, and it'll last a while.  So what'll you need?

• 6 large eggs
• Mayonnaise
• Salt and pepper
• Lemon juice
• 3 stalks celery
• Some chives
• Bread
• Grey poupon mustard

I can't wait for Christmas!

Also as pictured, because I'm a swell guy like that.  You can also see my new tea tumbler I got today, which I'm very excited for!  

Now, note that this stuff, for the most part, is either hella cheap or you buy it once and replace it like eight years later.  I use mayo like once a month, maybe, which is somewhat un-frugal since it doesn't last as long as I would like it at such a rate, but eh.  

Now, the first step is to hardboil these suckers.  The problem with such an idea is that there are about a thousand different ways to hardboil eggs, apparently.  I was Googling for about fifteen minutes just trying to find some consistencies between any two besides "put water on eggs", and I was having a lot of trouble just doing that.  Finally I just picked one and (mostly) went with it, and I couldn't find anything wrong with it.  SO!  How does one hardboil?  Easy: get some eggs, put them in a pot, fill that pot with cold water (yes, order apparently does matter), bring it to an uncovered boil, then cover, turn off the heat, and let it sit for about fifteen minutes.

See also: a really big pot, a clock, our eggs, and my tea.  Because I NEED TEA.

Thus making it even easier to believe that eggs don't really require much culinary finesse to prepare (which is wrong, but shut up).  While your eggs get to a boil and after you cover them you have a lot of downtime: I got to chop the celery, slice my bread, and get my tea steeping while they got to a boil (okay, that last one isn't hard.  whatever).  Once you get the eggs a boilin' and covered, turn the heat off and put a lid (much easier than a ring) on it.  At this point you should get a bowl of cold water and stick it in your freezer so that you have uber cold water for when the eggs are done.  If you have a timer or whatever, make use of it - otherwise, you have a cell phone so really you still have a timer.  This was when I booted up my SNES and relived some of my childhood.

In a childhood far, far away...

Ah yes...those were the days.  Fifteen minutes later, after the second one of these...

I thank God for this one.

And the eggs were basically ready.  In actuality, you can get an extra couple minutes in here, since you need to put the eggs into the cold water you should have stuck in your freezer and let them sit more, for about three minutes or so, long enough to stop the cooking.  Meanwhile, help poor little baby Mario some more!  

Once that's been done, you need to peel some eggs.  This isn't actually that hard, the worst part is just getting the first crack in the egg so it peels off right.  If you take a spoon and lightly tap it against the same spot, you should eventually make some headway and you can pull off the rest of the shell to reveal the now tasty, murdered chicken embryo!  If life starts at conception, chicken life is oh so delicious.

If you look at it, it looks like a pure white butterfly on a celery field.

I dip them in the (formerly) cold water bath just to make sure they're pretty much clear of debris, then toss them in.  Here's where you can add the salt and pepper and dried chives and other stuff.  Also, before you start mashing, it's actually a lot easier if you mash, and then add the celery...I'll make better notes of things like that before taking pictures next time.

Anyway, take your fork and mash that shit down.  Once you don't have any obscenely large chunks left (but before it's down to a pulp...you violent person), add in the celery and start adding in some mayonnaise, a tablespoon at a time.  You want it to stick, but you don't want all the grossness of mayo in your egg salad.  That's just grody.  Add in a squirt of lemon juice or two, and bam!

I uh, I got a little something on the edge of the bowl.  It's not what it looks like.

Okay, it's mayo.  You caught me.  :(

This is what I like my egg salad looking like, but if you want more mayo (ick) then I guess that's allowed.  Just don't come back to this blog.  You icky person you.  How do you live with yourself.

From here, it's a simple matter of slapping onto bread and putting stuff on top of it.  I personally just need some dijon mustard, but lettuce works well too.

And that's egg salad!  I expect mine to be able to last for at least six sandwiches, which is three meals or so. Let's do a little cost analysis:

• Celery - $1.36, 8-10 stalks (~3 batches) -> 45 cents
• Eggs - $2.75, 18 (3 batches) ->  92 cents
• Salt/pepper - how do you not have these already
• Mayo - I'm not sure, maybe like $4/32oz jar?  If you use 3 tbsp each, then about 10 batches per jar     -> 40 cents
• Lemon juice - $2.19, a lot?  (assume like 20 batches I guess?) -> 10 cents
• Bread - I don't remember the cost of store bread, but I think my homemade is like 20 cents a loaf, after cost of gas probably 25 cents, and you get about 10 sandwiches per loaf if you slice thin -> 15 cents
• The grey poupon mustard is a little pricy, $3.39 per 12oz, but you can cut that out if you're hellbent on maximizing frugality, but assume 30 sandwiches (you don't need much) -> 11 cents

So take each item price and divide by how many batches it makes and you get that item's contribution.  Totalled up, without fancy mustard is $2.02 per batch, with mustard is $2.13.  Divide by three, you get right around 70 cents a meal. This would cost like, what, five bucks at Kroger?  You just cut your cost into a fraction, made a tastier meal, AND have something to write home about.  What's not to love?

Thus, the first blog entry of Frugal Undergrad College Kitchen comes to an end.  If you have something to say, be it "YOU'RE WRONG", or praise, or complaining about how much you hate eggs and why did this first FUCKing blog entry have to be about eggs, just put it in the comments!  I'll probably be checking obsessively for the next few hours while pretending to do homework, so don't let me down (please!).  I hope this has been a good reading experience for you, and happy Fruncoking to all!