The Fan Favorite

People have asked me how I come up with my sandwich ideas (trust me, this does in fact happen). The truth of it is that it's different depending on the week. Sometimes I have an idea formulating in my head for a few weeks before it actually plays out in sandwich form. Sometimes I wake up on Sunday morning (when I go shopping) without having considered it all week long. This week was an example of the former. I have been spending a good deal of my past couple of weeks dedicating my mental energy towards college basketball, and so I woke up on Sunday, after a devastating loss for Syracuse with a question that I didn't have long much time to answer. What's the sandwich for this week?

The answer to the question turned out to be a pretty good one, and ended up not seeming to be hastily thrown together, which was a big surprise. I decided on a whim that since I hadn't made an egg salad sandwich yet that I would do that. I googled 'spicy egg salad' and literally worked off the first recipe that I found. I would have added the link, but I'm unable to find it at this juncture.

I went surprisingly off-path from the recipe, adding in red pepper and a spicy peppercorn mustard (courtesy of  fellow trainer Erin), and played around a bit with the amounts of different ingredients. What came of this experimentation, I'm proud to admit, is a wonderful egg salad unlike any that I have ever had. The pepper, peppercorn mustard, chipotle chili powder, onion and celery added a ton to this salad, and it turned out to be a somewhat spicy, but completely delicious concoction to be thrown between two pieces of toast.

This sandwich became a fan favorite at Charles Products. Many tried it, and almost all spoke highly of it. One co-worker even went as far to state that it was the 'best egg salad' she had ever had. Whoa, shit just got real, son.

The arbitrary scoring system pegs this sandwich at a 9/10. I'm not sure if I even could make this egg salad again because, to be honest, I sort of winged a lot of it. I'm very pleased with how everything came out, and I'd love to have it again, but I'd make a couple of minor changes to the construction. Taste-wise this is a great egg salad, but it could use some salt/pepper, and probably a higher ratio of egg. I'd also like to tone back the liquid components a bit, as it is a bit soupy for my tastes, but my tastes are particularly anti-soupy, so there you go.

And so, as goes another Syracuse basketball season (R.I.P.), another sandwich week has come and gone (although sandwich switch-up Friday may be in full effect tomorrow). This weekend brings a 17-mile jump in mileage for our training ride, which I would guess is the biggest jump we've ever done outside of the actual century ride. Physically I'm ready for it. Mentally I'm not so sure.