You might not think there’d be ways to improve
upon the egg sandwich—fry an egg, melt some cheese on toast, maybe get alittle bacon involved.
Crushed together with the yolk as condiment, this is breakfast, sure, but it’s also lunch, dinner, or a midnight snack. And for many of us, this happens a lot, so a new egg sandwich is a boon. This one, from Brooklyn sandwich shop Saltie, takes a novel egg-cooking technique—a hybrid of fried and scrambled—and adds very little.
The soft scrambled eggs are really clotted whites,
suspended in a barely thickened yolk—something like if you were to slash an
over-easy egg to bits. They’re served on a piece of split focaccia with ricotta,
which acts as both a subtle variation in curdy texture and insulation for the
bottom layer of bread. Eating it is a messy operation—but it doesn’t last
long.
Makes 1 sandwich
1 sandwich-size piece of
focaccia
About 2 tablespoons fresh
ricotta
1 teaspoon unsalted
butter
2 large eggs
Sea salt
1 Cut the focaccia in half horizontally and put the
bottom half on a plate, cut side up. Spread the ricotta in an even and generous
layer on the cut side. Set aside.
2 To soft scramble the eggs, melt the butter in a
nonstick skillet over medium heat. Break the eggs into the pan when it is warm
but not yet hot. Sprinkle the eggs lightly with salt.
3 Let the pan heat up, and don’t move the eggs until
the whites begin to set. Using a rubber spatula, move the whites around the pan
to help cook through, while keeping the yolk unbroken. When the whites fluff up
and are almost completely set, remove from the heat and fold the yolks into the
white. The residual heat should cook the whites through and leave the yolks
soft. This is kind of like scrambling an over-easy egg. To emphasize: Be careful
not to overcook the eggs. Err on the side of runny rather than dry.
4 Spoon the eggs on top of the ricotta. Replace the top
of the bread and serve right away.
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
The secret to crispier, faster, better
grilled cheese sandwiches is in slathering the outsides of the bread not with
butter, but mayonnaise, like Gabrielle Hamilton, author and chef-owner of Prune.
Mayo is slower to burn, which—just like that—solves the biggest challenge of
grilled cheese: how to get the insides to heat through before the outside
blackens. The oil and egg in mayonnaise also brown and crisp more evenly than
butter, creating a glossy crunch from edge to edge.
If you’re making a lot of sandwiches, heat
the oven to 300°F (150°C). Make as many sandwiches as you like, smearing
mayonnaise (Hamilton uses Hellmann’s) generously on one side of ½-inch (1.3cm)
thick slices of rustic bread. Form sandwiches, mayo-side out, the middles
stuffed with shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese. Heat a large, preferably
nonstick frying pan or griddle over medium-low heat until hot, about 4 to 5
minutes. Place 2 to 3 of the sandwiches in the pan and cook until the bottoms
are golden brown and the cheese is starting to melt, about 5 minutes. Flip the
sandwiches and cook until the second sides are golden brown and the cheese is
completely melted, about 5 minutes more. If you need to hold the sandwiches or
make more, transfer them to a baking sheet and place them in the oven to keep
warm. Let them cool a minute to two before cutting each sandwich in half. Serve
with spicy
tomato soup.
0 التعليقات: