- So, listen, go out, live your life.
[clattering]
He's trying to sabotage me.
[clattering]
[indistinctive chatter]
[laughs]
[upbeat music]
- I didn't think we were gonna have time
to make healthiest
breakfast sandwiches today,
but it turns out, we do.
So, so much the better for you and me,
and everyone else in this kitchen.
In New York, there is the phenomenon
of the kinda bodega sandwich,
like classic bacon-egg-cheese sandwich,
that's probably saved you
from countless hangovers,
countless mornings of hangriness.
I myself, you know,
have a deep-seated love
and appreciation for that sandwich.
But, you ask yourself the question,
what would it take to make that
a little bit more healthy-ish,
it'd probably be a little
bit something like this.
So, first thing we're gonna do,
is we're gonna make onion bacon,
and interpret that how you will,
we're not trying truly make
some kind of meat substitute,
but there's a certain way that beak bacon
kinda gives depth and
kinda grounds the flavor
of a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich,
and onion, you toss it
with a little soy sauce,
little garlic powder,
little olive oil, salt,
it takes on similar, not identical,
a very similar kind of savory
deep rich umami filled quality.
So, normally when I cut an onion,
I go sort of along the longitudinal axis,
but that works.
Today, I'm gonna go the other way.
I'm gonna go across the equator.
I'm then gonna peel it,
and the reason why I'm
cutting it this way,
is that, what I don't want,
are kind of like big stringy bits of onion
that are gonna come out of the sandwich
a little bit too easy.
This is gonna result in these
big, nice petals of onion,
that are gonna flatten and stay put.
And that's kinda essential to
the construction of a
good breakfast sandwich.
Things shouldn't be sliding
in and out, and all around.
So, I took the top off.
Guess I could've done that first.
Might've made a little more sense.
No big deal.
I'm just gonna separate
the petals of this onion.
You wanna have nice big petals.
Separate them all out.
To nice big rings.
Pieces of onion could never
actually be bacon, right?
But they can take on
similar kinda really deep,
kinda rich umami quality to them.
In this case, onion
goes in that direction,
just in it of itself,
especially red onion.
Just very pleasantly sweet.
It roasts up really tender,
and has a creamy quality to it.
I'm helping it along in this instance
with a little bit of soy sauce,
which is also super kinda rich and savory.
So I'm just tryna keep these rings
as intact pieces as possible.
That way, after these are roasted,
we'll be able to flatten
them on the sandwich,
and they'll lay like a strip of bacon.
All right.
So, onto this.
I'm putting just a table
spoon of olive oil,
to help the onion
get kinda soft and jammy.
A little bit of soy sauce,
this is one teaspoon, regular soy sauce.
That's kinda gonna boost up
the umami quality of the onion.
And then garlic powder,
which, garlic power,
it's not necessarily a
substitute for raw garlic,
but it adds garlic flavor,
in a very deep and precise way,
so it's a great addition to dry rubs,
it's a great addition to blender sauces,
because it's not gonna have that sharp
in your face raw garlic quality.
It's gonna have a little bit more of
a kind of
low-level
umami richness to it.
Then, I'm just gonna also season
with a little bit of salt,
and then, it's actually kinda pretty.
One second.
Okay.
I'm just gonna toss these altogether.
All right.
And these gonna go in the oven.
It's at 350.
Uh oh.
Did it again.
I don't know how cool that is or not.
Thank you.
This is what they're gonna become.
So red onion, in particular,
because of that sugar content,
it gets sweet and jammy
and unctuous in a way
that
most other onions just don't.
They kinda have tendency
to get kinda dry, and sad.
Whereas red onion has this
luscious plumpness to it.
There is the lovely, kinda deep
and rich.
It's like it's almost smoky, you know?
It almost tastes like,
it's been cured or kinda like adulterated,
in some way bacon is.
So, we have our lovely,
kind of onion rings here,
that are gonna be
clutched in our sandwich.
We're adding just a little bit of
that kinda depth to it.
I'm actually gonna just throw these aside,
on our speed rack here.
So when I was talking to
Andy about this sandwich,
I was like, "what do you
think of breakfast sandwich,
like a healthy-ish one
has to have?"
And he said, that it has to
have something green in it.
And I racked my brain like green, green.
I mean, yeah, you can
do some arugula pastel,
Are you making arugula pastel
for your breakfast sandwich?
You're hungover,
or you woke up too late
or you're staying in and
you just want to make
something tasty for yourself.
I can think of so many days of my life
that I probably would've
been way better off
like maybe two hundred percent better off
if I have had something like this
to kinda get me up and moving.
Anyway, point being,
why not use, like an awesome green
hot sauce that has a little bit of that,
like more kinda like vegetal,
herbaciousness quality to it,
as opposed to the standard red one,
and,
you can absolutely use
red hot sauce for this,
it truly, it doesn't matter that much,
because we're gonna bulk this up
with some freshly chopped herbs.
But a hot sauce, actually,
has a lot of the complexity
that you're looking for,
in a condiment or
dressing just ready to go.
So, I didn't want this
to turn into a big ask,
you know, already, you're
roasting your onions,
you're making some soft scrambled eggs.
I didn't want the sauce to be
a big labor intensive element.
So, I'm gonna use a couple tablespoons of
this lovely green cholula hot sauce.
I'm gonna round it out and
thin it out just slightly
with a little bit of olive oil
And I'm gonna put some
freshly chopped herbs in it.
That's gonna give us a really
nice, super easy condiment.
'Kay.
I'ma chop some herbs, you could use dill,
cilantro, basil, whatever
you have on hand.
I'm just gonna do a little mixy mix here.
Any soft herb will be totally welcome.
Got our herbage.
So, to make Andy happy,
and because it is the right thing to do
got a green sauce.
It's bright, it's tangy,
it's really flavorful. Highly recommend.
All right.
The next step, do a little
soft scrambled eggs,
and before I get the eggs going,
you couldn't just put
this on a plain bagel,
and call it a day,
It wouldn't be super healthy-ish.
I have a particular affection
for foods for lifes,
seven, sprouted,
whole-grain English muffins.
They are a little dry, a little carboardy,
but you eat one, and you
definitely feel healthy.
Like, you feel honestly even virtuous.
I'm just gonna go ahead and
toast these in the oven,
while we're working on our eggs.
You guys are only making me do recipes
that involve cracking eggs.
Never let it down.
It does help if you do it with slightly
more room temp eggs, I find.
- [Cameraman] How are these?
- These are pretty good.
- [Cameraman] Ah, oh!
- I mean, I can do it, but
I'm not doing it on camera.
For America, you know.
Like there's two pieces
of friggin shell in there.
I literally don't know
how anybody does it.
It's my calyceal, it's fine.
It's my kryptonite, and I
just have to live with it.
All right.
Well, I took the shell out, and I admitted
that there was shell in there,
I did the right thing.
Healthy-ish or not, I think
that soft scrambled eggs
need butter.
Occasionally, if I'm
moving fast in the kitchen,
and I want a little scrambled eggs snack,
I will use olive oil.
Let's face it,
it's just not as good.
So, I don't try to overwhisk it,
but a little bit of whisking is good.
Oh wow, this is some
soft butter, that's okay.
Soft scrambled eggs, soft butter,
they're kinda in the same world there.
Grab this.
Let's kinda eyeball this,
and call it a tablespoon.
So, even a tablespoon of
butter divided between,
among four eggs, it's
gonna make two sandwiches.
The flavor you get, the
benefits of the richness,
you know, you're kinda already
adding to already rich eggs,
it's kind of key.
I like to put, get the
butter nice and melty,
just like a little
pre-toast on the muffin,
very clutch.
Aw, thank you.
So as soon as the butter is
melted, I'm gonna drop these in.
You certainly need salt in your eggs.
I don't know that you always
need pepper in your eggs.
Maybe I'm in the minority,
but for this, we already
have that hot sauce
going on in there.
So I'm moving this around,
getting the eggs off of the
cooking surface.
Pause for a sec.
Season with a little salt.
I just find that when you're whisking,
you're moving anything,
like a little motion in the pan
itself as well as moving it,
just really helps distribute
the eggs and redistribute them
across the cooking surface.
Continually.
So nothing has the chance to overcook.
I'm just looking for a nice loose set,
and that's it.
I'm gonna be dividing this in
half into two little portions,
to go on our muffins.
Boom.
So, next step.
Everything is basically done.
I just want to get this
cheese a little bit melty.
I'm gonna cut some pieces of cheese.
Assemble the sandwich part way.
Melt it for three, four
minutes, however long it takes
to get that cheese oozy.
And then we'll finish
assembling from there.
Just gonna divide my egg.
Don't really have to worry about
the egg overcooking at this point.
The cheese is going to
insulate it a little bit.
Cheese on top.
The tops are already feeling
plenty toasted to me,
so I'm not gonna like re-toast them here.
Just going to throw that in
just until the cheese is melted.
And then, I'm gonna finish assembling it.
About five minutes.
Just want to see a little bit of ooze.
That's perfect.
As discussed, everything is cool,
sauce is going on top.
Sauce on top.
So, this is what I'm saying.
When you cut the onions like this,
you get a beautiful ring,
kinda stays put on there.
It's not gonna travel too far,
you know what I'm saying?
Crispy, jammy, chewy, unctuous.
Boom.
We'll transfer it just off
this hot little sizzle platter.
You can obviously double fist this.
Obviously, eat it over a plate.
But the egg, at a certain point,
is gonna want to drop out,
but there's something that we can take
from the bodegas and delis that specialize
in this kind of sandwich,
and that is to wrap it.
I know it sounds crazy,
like why are you gonna wrap
sandwich that you're
just gonna eat yourself,
hunched over the counter,
on a Saturday morning at ten thirty.
But it just keeps everything contained.
Get a sheet of parchment,
that's about 18 inches or so,
long, fold it down onto
the top, fold in the sides.
Bam.
And then you're gonna sit down and say,
"But how do you eat it Chris?"
Aha.
Here, you're gonna cut it in half safely.
Just like the pros.
[upbeat music]
Delany, you wanna try a sandwich?
Today's your day, man.
- Today's the day. As if you
weren't watching on your.
- It's that stuff you get a bodega.
- So this is our healthy-ish
breakfast sandwich.
- Okay. So what do we got,
we got some onions.
We have the green sauce.
- So then we got,
We got like onion "bacon",
with a little bit of soy sauce,
garlic powder, salt, olive oil.
- Real umami booster.
- Yes.
And then a soft scrambled
eggs, little bit of butter,
'cause you need it.
- You need it.
And then, just a mild cheddar.
- Love it.
This is giving everything I want.
- I gotta put that down.
So good, right?
- So good.
Bright, vibrant.
- That sauce.
- All right, thanks, man.
All right, get out of here.
There's certain kind of
sandwiches and things
you just associate with eating out,
but it's actually just
super easy and awesome
if you can make it yourself.
So listen, go out, live your life,
party like there's no tomorrow,
just note that there's always
a breakfast sandwich available
the next morning if you need it.
