[RECIPE] Peanut Butter and Bacon French Toast Sandwich
Because every week is sandwich week, really.
This recipe works best with some nicely staled challah - we get ours from Costco. Don’t make any plans to do anything for at least a few hours afterwards.
Serves 2-3
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- ground cinnamon
- 300ml of whole milk
- 50ml of double cream
- Skippy Smooth peanut butter
- 6-8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon
- 1tbsp of vanilla extract
- at least half a stick of unsalted butter to hand at room temperature
- icing sugar
- blueberries
- maple syrup
- 2/3 stale challah rolls (or other white bread)
Method
Preheat the oven and throw the bacon in on a baking tray.
Beat the eggs, milk and cream together lightly. Add in a good dash of cinnamon and the vanilla extract.
Pour the mixture in to a flat bottomed dish.
Halve your rolls and submerge them into the dish for a minute, flip and then do the other side too. Try to get as good a covering as you can so the mixture has really soaked in.
Melt a healthy knob of butter in your favourite pan.
Batch fry the toast, making sure the pan doesn’t get too hot and brown the butter too much. 2-3 minutes per side should do it but you can flip pretty regularly. Keep going until they’re a pleasing golden brown.
Once the toast is cooked, let them cool a little and then add a healthy dollop of peanut butter. Smooth works best with this recipe since it’ll melt quickly and is easier to spread without ruining the finish of your toast.
The bacon should nicely crisp by this stage - wipe off any excess grease with some kitchen towel, snap them in two and put them on top of one half.
Apply the top half, add a liberal dose of maple syrup, a cursory handful of blueberries on the side and sieve a layer of icing sugar on top.
Cancel your plans for the rest of the day.
- Simon.
[REVIEW] Eggy Bread with Honey Roast Ham, Cheese & Béchamel & Honey Mustard Dressing (AKA The Monte Cristo) / Foxcroft and Ginger / London
Sandwiches rule.
Bang all kinds of shit between two slabs of cooked dough and then eat it. Simple.
Everyone’s got a favourite but, in this guy’s humble opinion, the greatest sandwich of all time is the Monte Cristo - usually a ham and Swiss cheese sandwich dipped in egg and grilled like French Toast, sprinkled with sugar, drizzled with maple syrup and served with a side of blueberry jam.
Yeah, sounds ridic doesn’t it? Done right, I fucking love this sandwich.
Regretfully, I’ve only found one place that sells a Monte Cristo in London town, the Diner, and it was piss poor.
Foxcroft & Ginger’s effort, to all intents and purposes, is a low-key, anglicised bastard child of the Monte Cristo, but it’s close enough. It’s all rather petite, polite and user friendly, much like the establishment producing it.
A Monte Cristo lite, if you will. And it’s rather pleasant.
While it had soaked in the sweet, slightly nutmeggy egg mixture, the bread was still light and fluffy, the way good French Toast should be. The melty cheese mixture over the ham was mild and a touch nutty, and the honey and mustard drizzled over the top, whilst tear-jerkingly sparse, added a spicy sweetness to it all. And it was cheap as! No blueberry dip, but then again, it’s not a Monte Cristo, is it?
If you’re up for a coffee and fancy a bit of a snack as well, you won’t go far wrong with a visit to F&G. Just don’t confuse them with the deceptively similar Fernandez & Wells. No Monte Cristo there.
- Rob.
Time for tea
A sandwich selection at Mariage Frères, Paris
The joy of Monte Cristo
from Mama’s, San Francisco.
[SANDWICH INSURRECTION] Keu! / Shoreditch / London / Banh Mi
This is a fantastic Banh Mi spot. Pick up the pork belly example and be amazed.
★[REVIEW / ON TOUR] Lobster Grilled Cheese / L.A. Café / Los Angeles, CA
Like conquering Mongols, we were on to the next dish.
We were drunk. We were in Downtown Los Angeles. We wanted some junk food. A bouncer told us to bowl down to Spring Street, and there, we found L.A. Café. That bouncer was a right geezer.
Sceptical that it looked too much like a bog standard cafe, we ventured in anyways, and on seeing chilli cheese fries on the menu were sold. My broseph also spied the Lobster Grilled Cheese, and on a high from the previous night’s grilled cheese food truck experience, ordered that too. Brilliant choice.
The lobster was lathered in a mornay-style sauce which was rich and lightly peppery from a hint of mustard. A thin layer of melted cheese was thrown on which glued it all to the bread perfectly. There were many tipsy cors and wows from both of us as we ploughed through it.
Like conquering Mongols, we were on to the next dish. The thick soup-like cheese was a great blanket for the crisp fries and customer-friendly chilli (it was missing a real kick). We got through that with presumably even less dignity.
Downtown L.A. has a real buzz to it and I was surprised how I hadn’t taken the time to explore it on previous visits. But whether you’ve spent your evening in a ridonkulous club or a dingy dive bar, this would be a pretty sweet place to end up.
Oh, and afterwards we wandered past a taping of CSI:NY, naturally.
- Rob.
