You may or may not know this, but I am of the school of thought that putting anything in between two slices of bread (or bagel/pitta/whatever) makes it better. The sandwich is a lifestyle element and by gosh I embrace it. Literally most sorts of food can be made better with a sandwich.
Naturally however, it is easy to screw this up. So easy in fact that it may be just worth making your own sandwiches just to prevent this—store bought ones can just be so bad! But at the end of the day, the ingredients just have to be fresh (whether it’s steak, salmon or brie), high quality, lots of them (sandwiches are only proper if they provide a challenge to eat) and good bread. Really good fresh bread makes it even better.
And so, on that note. I present the most awesome breakfast sandwich ever created. This baby was inspired by the wonderful Wild Flour Cafe and Bakery in Banff, AB. In fact they basically created it, I just added a few things just to make it that little bit more awesome. For now I’ll just call it the Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich.
They describe it (or did describe it when their last menu was up) as a herbed egg frittata and 7yo mature cheddar on sourdough. There was also the possibility of adding a slice of valbella ham, which was obviously well worth going for. This sandwich sounds simple, but the ingredients used are incredible. Especially the sourdough. The culture they have going there must be some sort of miracle culture because that bread just comes out so light, airy and tasty that it’s unreal.
So anyway, in going about creating my own version and improving the original, I had to deal with the limited and slightly different ingredients that I could find. No fresh sourdough (that’s a lie, I just couldn’t find any in the store, I should have just made my own), no one to make my frittatas but myself. But trust me, I more than survived.
So, what to do… preheat grill/oven/sandwich press/whatever cooking thing you use for sandwiches, and preheat frying pan or george foreman grill. The first step is to make the egg frittata. I totally don’t make it properly, but it works, and tastes good. So I’m happy. Beat eggs (I use 3 for 2ish sandwiches) with mixed herbs (oregano, basil and thyme especially), add a little olive oil, milk and salt and pepper to taste. If you’re using a frying pan, then basically make an omelette (make it a little thicker than usual if poss) or if you’re using a george foreman, then tilt it backwards slightly so you have a flat heating surface, and then pour the egg mixture on, close the lid and wait, maybe flipping it ever so often. Meanwhile get a few large slices of sourdough (or other large white loaf – Tiger bread here in the UK can work), layer some Valbella or smoked ham and then grate gruyere on top of the ham, add the egg frittata, a handful of baby spinach and then toast/oven/grill. I sometimes think the oven is better because it melts the cheese without making it soggy…
Finally, enjoy with hot sauce (important!) and tomato ketchup. The hot sauce was a gamble originally, but it works so well with the spinach. You want one that’s fairly hot, not too smokey, but has lots of taste. I rather like this one. Anyway, I happy I discovered such a magnificent sandwich, try it out, learn to love it and let me know what you think.
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