Madhu Knits and Cooks

Solid Classic Egg Salad

Egg salad, egg salad - how you have entered our lives!  Building on the success of my first homemade egg salad, I decided to try a more traditional, mayonnaise-based egg salad from the Cook's Illustrated team.   

This egg salad was pretty good - the eggs cooked better this time (less dry) and the inclusion of mayonnaise didn't result in too bland of a flavor.  Instead, the herb, red onion, and celery flavors came through pretty well.  I added some leftover tarragon to this recipe as well. 

And while the dijon mustard added a nice tang, I think a slash of champagne vinegar would have also helped add more diversity of flavors to this otherwise tasty egg salad.  I look forward to making this recipe again! 

Herby Irish Ale Bread - Full of Flavor, But Likely Not a Recipe Repeat

I'm not sure what drew me to this Milk Street Irish Ale Bread with Caraway and Herbs, but perhaps it was my recent bounty of dill? 

This recipe otherwise wouldn't be a draw unless perhaps I was preparing a brunch in which an entire flavored loaf would be likely to be consumed.  Generally our bread loaves get recycled into multiple uses - grilled cheese, toast, croutons - into which a highly flavored loaf won't easily convert.  

Unfortunately, this recipe didn't in turn convert me to a flavored bread enthusiast.  There were a lot of sweet, salty, and fresh flavors from the herbs, caraway seeds, honey, and beer, but I don't really know if they really came together into a compelling way.  Combined with a slightly stodgy texture,  this recipe will go into the "tried it" category. 

Eggs, Eggs, Eggs! Herbed Deviled Eggs - Likely Not a Recipe Repeat

Inspired by my deliciously herby egg salad, I decided to try some Herbed Deviled Eggs.  Unfortunately, as it turns out, chopped herbs aren't as wonderful in deviled eggs.

I found their texture to be displeasing in the otherwise smooth filling.  And unfortunately, I also found the mayonnaise in this recipe to be too overwhelming, and it also washed out the flavor of the herbs.  So not great texture and not great flavor. 

Granted, I didn't have sour cream on hand to cut the mayonnaise flavor, and I also didn't bring the eggs to a boil on high enough heat, so the yolks were also overcooked.  Combination of user error and a recipe that didn't match my tastes.  On to the next!

My First Egg Salad - Sans Mayonnaise, Slightly Tart, and Full of Herbs

I don't know if I had ever consumed egg salad prior to a few years ago.  Why?  I wasn't a big fan of cooked eggs growing up (hence 2018 for my first hard boiled eggs attempt), and I also have similarly never been a huge fan of mayonnaise.  So you can tell why egg salad hasn't been that appealing.

How did that change?  Well, ever so slowly, I have been trying egg salad sandwiches, largely because vegetarian sandwich options can sometimes be very limited.  This includes during a driving trip we took to Nova Scotia last summer.  As it turns out, limited options can lead to great discoveries, including a truly marvelous, herby egg salad sandwich at the Bread Gallery in West Hants, Nova Scotia.

While tasting that remarkable egg salad, not heavy on mayonnaise and very heavy on fresh herbs, I thought I was a full egg salad convert.  Sadly, in the months that followed, I largely ate mushy, bland, and too mayonnaise-filled egg salads.  So when I finally decided to make an egg salad at home, I searched for recipes that would be heavier on the herbs and light on the mayonnaise.

I was quite surprised to ultimately find an entirely mayonnaise-less, herb-heavy recipe on Milk Street.  Thankfully, the result was great - not quite what I remembered from the Bread Gallery, but very good with tarragon, chives, parsley, red onions, and ground turmeric.  And the best part - some light tartness from some champagne vinegar.  

Halving the recipe was great for 3 - 4 servings. The only modifications I would make moving forward are to chop the eggs a bit smaller than the recipe calls for and perhaps experiment with a bit of vegenaise for slightly more creaminess.  Otherwise, I loved that the eggs weren't pulverized into a mushy, dry paste like too many egg salad sandwiches and that the fresh herb flavors came through.

Ovenly's Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

For a short spell over the holidays, we adopted a fully vegan diet.  As longtime blog readers know, much of what I already cook is vegan so this wasn't too dramatic a change.  However, it did affect some of our standard at-home preparations, notably desserts.  

The only sweet snack I made during this vegan stint was Ovenly's great vegan chocolate chip cookies.  I've had this Brooklyn bakery's cookies in person, and they are truly wonderful.  A bit heavier and thicker than the chocolate chip cookies I generally prefer, but very moist and rich with sugary cookie flavor.

At home, these cookies turned out similarly though were softer and underbaked than what I've had compared to the bakery.  I baked the cookies for a few minutes longer than the recipe 12-13 minute baking time, but many were still very soft in the middle.  I did rotate the cookie sheets, and wonder if I should have used the convection setting?

Regardless, these were a solid thicker and moist cookie.  It's not generally my favored outcome for chocolate chip cookies (I like crisper cookies), but I will make these again if I want a vegan cookie!

Hetty McKinnon Obsession Continues - NYT Silken Tofu with Spicy Soy Dressing

As recent posts have shown, I've been on a true Hetty McKinnon kick the past few months.  The latest?  Not from one of her wonderful cookbooks, but instead a NYT Cooking recipe.  

I slightly freestyled this recipe for Silken Tofu with Spicy Soy Dressing because I was using a partial block of leftover silken tofu, but the result was really wonderful. 

Salty from the soy sauce, savory from the sesame oil, slightly sweet from the sugar and rice wine vinegar, spicy from the chile oil, and crunchy from the scallions - yum. 

A benefit of using a partial leftover block of silken tofu is that it had naturally drained in the fridge, making prep that much more of a cinch. 

The tofu I used had been out of the fridge for an hour or two, so slightly more room temperature than cold, which I liked a lot.  

My First Chia Pudding - Matcha Chia Pudding by Hetty McKinnon

I finally bought some chia seeds and made my first chia pudding, despite having rarely, if ever, eaten chia pudding before.

I think part of my hesitation of jumping on this health food favorite is my worry that the consistency may not be to my taste, similar to rice pudding.  I prefer smoother textures (e.g., smoothies or yogurts) to moist and dense grain-filled dishes. 

However, the pictures and description of Hetty McKinnon's matcha chia puddings in her To Asia, With Love cookbook were so delectable that I put my hesitations to the side and embarked on this (quite simple) journey.

I stirred together the ingredients, chilled the mixture, and as promised, the oat-milky mixture congealed and became a thicker pudding within a few hours.  The slightly bitter and herbal flavor of the matcha was quite pronounced in the pudding, but nicely offset by the sweet maple syrup. 

However, I ended up not eating the entire amount that I prepared because ultimately the textures were not to my taste.  I just don't enjoy  tiny, slightly mushy seeds working their way through my mouth sadly.    

I do have a whole package of chia seeds in my cupboards, so I'll need to try something with them again - any reader recommendations welcome!

My First Crumb Coffeecake - A Brunch or Tea Time Must Bake!

I checked out the King Arthur Flour All-Purpose Baker's Companion bake book from the library on a whim, and to be honest, I am not sure what my logic was.  When I saw the book, I thought that it was likely was just a compendium of KAF's online recipes. When I took it off the shelf, it was also relatively heavy, so not sure why I thought lugging the print version home would make more sense than their easy-to-navigate website.

Well, despite that mystery of my intentions, at least one of my assumptions was proven wrong in that the bake book does contain recipes that are not found on the website.  How did I find this?  Through making their Crumb Coffeecake, which does not appear on the KAF website (though the cake base itself is within this recipe).  

This recipe resulted in what may be the perfect first crumb cake attempt in history - deliciously moist, slightly savory, and pleasantly multi-textured.  And super easy to prepare at that (I halved the recipe for one 8-9 inch round cake), with the texture and flavors remaining intact in the days that followed.  A bit of almond extract in the crumb mixture added a nice, unexpected almost-floral element as well.  

I look forward to making this simple and delicious cake over and over again in the years ahead!

Guittard's Original Chocolate Chip Cookies - Doesn't Replace My Favorites

I have returned to my pre-pandemic behavior of getting a cookbook - or three - on a whim when I pick up books from the library.  One of the latest is the Guittard Chocolate Cookbook.  This cookbook has been a ton of fun to flip through, but after renewing the book for the maximum three times, I have only made one recipe - the Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies (called the "Original Chocolate Chip Cookies" on their website).  

The cookie recipe wasn't the best or the worst that I've ever made.  I would have preferred the cookies to be slightly crispier and more buttery, like my King Arthur Flour go-to recipe.  A few modifications to the original recipe - I used the convection session on my oven, and as such, reduced the temperature to 350.  I baked the cookies for 11 minutes.

One important difference btwn. the online and cookbook recipes - the flour cup measurement is the same (2.5 cups) but the online recipe states that is 382 grams whereas the cookbook recipe states that is 300 grams.  That's a pretty big difference!  I followed the cookbook recipe.  

Lisa Fain / The Homesick Texan's Salsa Tatemado - Mild, Smokey Tomato Salsa

With Cinco de Mayo fast approaching, I decided that I wanted to up my salsa game and turned to the excellent Homesick Texan for advice.  I settled on Lisa Fain's salsa tatemada recipe because it seemed sufficiently different from other salsas that I've made.

The salsa ended up being quite easy to prepare, even with my substitution of tomatoes on the vine for plum tomatoes and my use of a foil-lined quarter baking sheet instead of a skillet.  You basically roast the heck out of the ingredients before blending the ingredients with salt and water.

The result was smokey, mildly spicy, and had an unexpected herbiness from the fresh cilantro blended into the salsa.  I added extra salt to to get more of the ingredients' flavor to come out, and moving forward I will likely play with the cilantro ratio.  There was something  unpleasant I found about the fresh cilantro blended in with the roasted ingredients, even though I otherwise like cilantro. 

Regardless, this will likely be a recipe repeat this summer!