Chef it up, yo!

If you think this sounds unappetizing and/or gross, do us all a favor and put your head back in the sand. I remember having this on special occasions, on holidays and always when my family and I would go and visit my grandparents on Sundays.

When I was growing up my sister, my parents and I used to make the frequent Sunday day trip up the Garden State Parkway from Lakewood (NJ) to Staten Island (NY) to visit my Grandma and Opah. We would walk in the door and there on the kitchen table was a beautiful spread of fresh New York bagels and shrimp egg salad. I can’t tell you how good it tasted – words cannot describe. I am still not sure whether the shrimp egg salad always tasted so good because it was the end of a painfully long drive, or the fresh NY bagels, or simply the fact that my family was together for the day (which also meant delicious meals). I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as me and my family do. It is certainly simple, but by no means is it simple in taste!

Some hints for you: This family recipe has been experimented with throughout the course of my life. You are welcome to bastardize it to your liking but I have found a few things you may want to skip trying: 1) Don’t try to get fancy and put large fresh shrimp instead of canned tinies – it changes the flavor and not in a good way. I think that the tiny shrimp are a bit sweeter… just stick with the canned tiny shrimp trust me on this. 2) Shrimp egg salad tastes great as an appetizer on crackers and/or bagel chips. Tastes absolutely best on fresh NY bagels (toasted), but also damn good on a toasted english muffin or plain toast. I have been known to eat it on Kaiser rolls (which are my favorite rolls ever) or even just on a spoon. 3) Regular Hellmann’s Mayonnaise should be your first choice for mayo. I’m definitely not being a brand snob but its the only mayo that tastes right to me – if you choose otherwise I can’t be held responsible. Hey, I never promised a low-fat recipe!

Shrimp Egg Salad

• 4 – 6 hard boiled eggs, chopped (still warm – not cold and not steaming hot)
• 4 tablespoons Hellmann’s real mayonnaise (your call on amount of mayo)
• ½ teaspoon dried dill (or if you have fresh chop it and use a little bit more)
• 1 6 oz. can of whole tiny shrimp, drained
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard or spicy brown mustard (totally optional, I don’t usually do this – but if you want a little zing.)

Add chopped eggs to a medium-sized bowl. The eggs really need to be warm so that the yolk and the mayonnaise mix well and achieve a creamy consistency.

Drain the canned shrimp and add to your chopped egg. Add dill, mayonnaise, and salt and pepper. The amount of mayonnaise you use is entirely up to you. Some people enjoy a very creamy egg salad and others prefer a drier egg salad. This part of the recipe is to be determined by you and how many eggs you are using (I generally use about a tablespoon of mayonnaise per egg).

Mix well and taste. Adjust salt and pepper if necessary. Refrigerate for an hour or until egg salad is cold.

Some helpful hints for you…

For an appetizer (or even just to be super fancy for your friends), serve on crackers with sliced green olives and a sprinkle of paprika.

For a yummy lunch, serve on either toasted bagels (NY and even NJ bagels preferred), toasted English muffins or your favorite roll.

If you are a celery fan, throw in some chopped celery too!

Don’t use a mushroom slicer to chop your eggs…

(Not the prettiest pictures, but shows the many variations – click on images to enlarge)

Methane Meter says (c’mon…they are EGGS):

Download or print recipe here:
Shrimp Egg Salad Recipe (PDF 21.3 kb)

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 11:51 am and is filed under Appetizer, Eggs, Holidays, Seafood, Shrimp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.