Midnight Snackbox: Thomas Keller’s Spanglish Sandwich

Strange things happen when I’m sick with the flu. It happens a bit too often (according to the Bouch) but when it does I can take advantage of my stress free and congested sick day to play around in my home kitchen. Plus I get the munchies something awful when I’m sick.

If you haven’t seen the movie Spanglish starring Adam Sandler, then you aren’t missing much in the way of cinematic excellence. What you are missing, is arguably the world’s greatest sandwich designed by arguably the greatest American chef Thomas Keller. He consulted on the movie – Adam Sandler plays a successful chef – and created a simple yet mind-blowing sandwich everyone with a full set of teeth needs to try.

The video of Mr Keller teaching Mr Sandler, with recipe, is here.

I’ve been making this sandwich myself quite often these past few days; mainly for 1 reason: I have in my possession a package of smoked streaky beef bacon from EgySwiss. The same beef bacon we use over at Top Dawgs. While it’s not as fatty as I would like (Oscar Meyer turkey bacon from La Fromagerie is still a superior albeit more expensive product) a few experiments allowed me to get around the lamentable lack of fats. What’s wrong with no fat? Well 2 things: First, fat is flavor, so there’s that. and #2, the beef bacon dries up too quickly. As it stands now, the packaged bacon is sliced too thinly – a thicker cut may yield a better cooked product. But the flavor is pretty damn good.

The solution is to shallow fry the bacon in some foaming butter over a medium heat. after flipping once, I lay them out on a rack and allow them to crisp up in a 140C oven till I get the rest of the ingredients ready.

Other notable departures from Chef Keller’s recipe were the omission of the cheese and the lettuce – I’m not usually a fan of cheese on my sandwiches (personal preference) and I had no lettuce. I did add caramelized onions and Dijon mustard to provide a bit more kick to the entire affair. It’s important to remember that the key is a runny egg yolk – overeasy eggs need not apply.

This is what I ended up eating in 30 seconds.

Now I realize that most of you won’t be getting your hands on EgySwiss’ Beef Bacon any tme soon since their not available for commercial retail. But that doesn’t mean there is no hope – EgySwiss also has a very good smoked duck breast, which when sliced thinly and fried up in butter will hit the same flavor notes, just not the same textural ones. You could even go native and use Al Marai Bastirma (or other low garlic bastirma) and make yourself a posh Egg and Bastirma sandwich.

You’re welcome.

Cooking Time 10 minutes.