Breakfast Briefs: The Five Minute Egg Sandwich
(Welcome to Breakfast Briefs. If you’re like me, you find yourself rushing out the door hungry and undercaffeinated many a morning, the inevitable result of which is $6 spent on a bad egg sandwich and coffee fit only for war criminals. In these posts, I’m going to share my tips and tricks for getting to work fed without adding more than 5 or 10 minutes to your morning routine.)
Egg sandwiches: easy, cheap, portable, filling, delicious, versatile. The list goes on, but I think it’s the “easy” point that I’m going to need to convince people on. So here we go:
You can make an egg sandwich in five minutes.
You can. Have faith in yourself. And what’s more, you can do it with cheap ingredients that will last in your fridge for up to a month. Egads!
So get yourself a timer and take my five-minute egg sandwich challenge:
There are really just three ingredients in an egg sandwich:
Eggs – I buy mine from the farmer’s market. They keep in the fridge for at least three weeks.
Bread – I like sliced multigrain. Buy whatever kind you like, and keep it in the freezer. You can also use fresh bread if you have some, but I have serious problems with bread getting moldy before I eat it all.
Condiment – Whatever you like. Ketchup is a standby, and I really like putting jam on egg sandwiches. I made this one with avocado hummus.
So with your ingredients on hand, you’re ready for the five minute egg sandwich.
1. Put bread in toaster oven
2. Heat olive oil or butter in a frying pan.
3. Add egg to frying pan.
4. Spread out aluminum foil. This is what you will wrap your egg sandwich in.
5a. Cook egg to doneness. I like mine very runny, as egg-yolk soaked bread is one of the most delicious things ever. If you like your egg well-cooked, you’re wrong, but I’m not going to hunt you down or anything. Probably not anyway.
5b. Take toast from toaster oven. Place on foil. Smear with condiment of choice.
5c. Now, here’s the only tricky part. Depending on how well-cooked you like your eggs vs. how toasted you like your toast, your egg may be done before your toast is ready. If so, put the egg on a plate or paper towel temporarily. Tricky, right?
7. Assemble sandwich. I prefer the egg between the two slices of toast, but feel free to be creative.
8. Wrap and run. Bang. Breakfast in five minutes.
Oh my god, jam has no place on an egg sandwich…but hey I haven’t tried it yet so I take that back. Anyway, has anyone tried buttering both sides of two pieces of bread, and frying them as though you were working on making a grilled cheese sandwich,, and then putting the scrambled egg in between? Its about a billion calories and 400% cholesterol but hey, it’s good and you only live once. Unless you’re a Hindu
I make these a lot, and I like to add a bit of shredded cheese and a spoonful of salsa. Yum. I think I will go make one right now…
For those with only a microwave oven, a great way to cook an egg is to break one into a smallish shallow cereal bowl around which a tablespoon of olive oil has been swirled. Pierce yolk once or twice, cover, microwave for 60 seconds. Perfect fried egg in next to no time.
Like it. I am a runny-yolk man as well, which is like being a breast man only less common. I did once squirt runniness of yolk over my shirt just before running out the door. My advice is don’t do the spillage, it adds considerably to the 5 mins.
Food-related experiences (often tenuous) at http://www.discoverunearthed.wordpress.com – I’ll be linking to here and looking out for more morning routine time-shaving, diet enhances tips. Cheers.