Food for a hot busy day - Another curried egg salad!

I think if you live in the east coast like me, today was certain a day to stay indoors and certain away from major cooking. Well, this is where it gets tricky. My daughter Deepta had a performance in school, which meant a lot of juggling in the evening to keep the routine intact and of course, meant having something that we could all eat. I think by now most people know, I love salads, egg salads in particular are high on my preference scale. Well, there was an egg salad that was sitting there on my kitchen bookshelf with my name on it - well actually it had Monica Bhide's name on it. It was a recipe from her cookbook Modern Spice.  This recipe had just the perfect overtones of flavor and would work wonderfully for all of us. The carmelized onions, that get folded into a nice assortment of egg and vegetables add an amazing amount of flavor to a very pretty recipe.

I actually made a double recipe, and tweaked the ingredients ever so slightly - I used a half cup of mayonaise for 12 eggs instead of the 6 that the original recipe had, I eliminated the chilies for the kids but added them back in for us and squeezed in a lime to balance the flavor and moisture. This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Curried Egg Salad with Carmelized Onion

Recipe from Modern Spice by Monice Bhide

Note (this is a double recipe)

Serves 8-10 people

Prep/Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

 3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used olive)

1 red onion, thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 dozen hard cooked eggs

1/4 medium red onion, diced

` 1 organic red or orange bell pepper (seeded and finely diced

1/3 cup mayonaise (using her recommendations this would be 1.5 cups)

4 tablespoons minced cilantro

2 small green serrano chilies, minced 

3 teaspoons hot Madras curry powder (1 used about 2 teaspoons)

2 tablespoons prepared mustard

1 lime, halved (my addition)

2 cups spinach leaves, loosely packed (I used garden lettuce)

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil in a medium skillet heat the oil and add the onion and carmelize for about 5 minutes, the onion softens, turns pale golden and then light brown. Mix in the salt, sugar and black pepper.

2. Chop the eggs and mix with the onions and bell peppers.

3. In a separate bowl, mix in the mayonaise, cilantro, chilies, curry powder and the mustard. I squeezed in the lime juice at this time.

4. Mix in the carmelized onions and the dressing and toss well.

5. Serve the salad in cups of crisp lettuce or spinach.