Breakfast Sandwich #158 - Lab Report: Happy Hour Sandwich aka Don't Try This At Home

Sandwich: Lab Sandwich - Summer Sausage and Port Wine Cheese Spread
Date: March 25, 2020

I warned you that there may be a rash of Lab Reports coming your way and here we are but this is still not a cooking blog. I am going to try to keep this mercifully short but we'll see how that goes.

These items were leftover from a little Happy Hour event at my Mom's - cheese spread, sausage and crackers were a staple during cocktail hour at her place. I thought perhaps that might make for an interesting breakfast sandwich, minus the crackers.

Summer Sausage on a breakfast sandwich is not without precedence - it's been used previously in the lab and also appears on the menu at Graze. We've also experimented with cheese spread before.

I didn't mean to leave the Merkts out for a photobomb but it looks good back there. Also, note Merkts melty cheese spread oozing out of the sandwich.

The Sandwich - Merkts Port Wine Cheese Spread, Johnsonville Summer Sausage, chicken eggs, wheat bread. This required a little planning ahead as I wanted the cheese spread on the bread before toasting it. If you're familiar with cheese spread you know it needs to be out of the refrigerator for a bit before it's ready to spread onto a cracker or other carb vessel. I planned ahead for this scenario. I also did well with the eggs and the yolks remained in their yolky state.

The Result - A somewhat unsatisfying mess. It wasn't a bad sandwich but was a bit too gloppy and the flavors just weren't right. Regular cheese spread may have tasted better than the port wine variety, but I was working with what I had. The cheese spread didn't hold up to toasting, it shifted into a bit of a jam-like consistency, but it was really the flavor that didn't sit well with me. Not bad, but certainly not worth repeating. On that level, this was a failure. Summer sausage can be used effectively on a breakfast sandwich but it wasn't the proper protein here.

We did learn that happy hour foods are perhaps best reserved for cocktail hour. I tried to turn the tables on that thought process and envisioned breakfast sandwich items at a cocktail party. Picture a waiter with a tray of hors d'oeuvres at a gala-type event, perhaps offering a thin water biscuit cracker topped with a tiny fried quail egg and a little crisp of pork belly and an even tinier dollop of spicy aioli. That sounds like a winner and somebody needs to make that. Not this reporter.

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Breakfast Sandwich #106 - I'm Like A Lab Rat For Sandwiches

Sandwich: Summer Sausage, Medium Cheddar, Red Onion, Chicken Egg, Chipotle Cholula Sauce, English Muffin.
Date: 12/2/2017

I had no intention of going back into the lab so soon after the Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwich Extravaganza of last week. Honestly, I didn't have any experimental sandwich combos gnawing away at my psyche that I needed to try. However, at some point during the late morning I was feeling a bit peckish and started poking pecking around in the fridge to see what I could gnaw on and the only viable option was a breakfast sandwich.

There were a few options for meat - summer sausage, hard salami and bacon. In the name of experimentation I dismissed the bacon. I had a quick taste test between the hard salami and the summer sausage and made my choice. You may recall that way back in December of 2015 (The Year of the Breakfast Sandwich TM) I had a delicious summer sausage sandwich at Graze. That's the last time I had a summer sausage breakfast sandwich as Graze appears to be the only place that offers one. It's that or you make your own, I guess. 

The rest of the sandwich ingredients were almost a given - the cheddar was my best cheese option and the English Muffin was a better choice than my bread. I only had egg of chicken as I have not secured an alternative egg source. 

The red onion was a bit of a curveball. Red onion really brings a lot to the party when you're constructing a sandwich. It blends well with many meats and cheeses and seems to pull more flavor out of it's sandwich neighbors. It has to be used sparingly though as it can take over and get a bit obnoxious. A few thinly sliced pieces are often all that is needed. You have to know your limits. I've probably said all of this before.

I've been using the Cholula Green Pepper sauce on eggs a lot lately but thought the smokiness of the Chipotle would compliment the sausage. (Narrators voice: It did). 

All the pieces fell into place.

OK, I went a bit long on the egg.

The Result - Well, hell, this sandwich was swell. It really was excellent and a pleasant change from the normal breakfast sandwich offerings. The onion, cheddar, chipotle hot sauce and sausage blended and danced together well. There were a couple of things that I could have improved on. The egg was cooked a bit too long but life comes at you fast in the frying pan and that's the way it goes sometimes. The English Muffin wasn't toasted as much as I would have liked as a result of putting the tray in the toaster oven to catch dripping cheese. It turns out the cheese didn't drip much and I would have been better off without the tray. Also, a little more cheese would have been ideal. Overall this was a winner and I recommend you make one for yourself, pronto.

This is still not a cooking blog.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNtefWOnWWk

Breakfast Sandwich #48 - Graze aka Serendipitous Sausage

Sandwich: Chef Tory's Breakfast Sandwich
Location: Graze
Date: December 27, 2015
Cost: $12 comes with mixed greens or hand-cut fries

Graze has been on the list from the start but each time I was going out it wasn't the right choice for that day. It was only a matter of time.

If you saw my previous review you know I was lamenting not ordering a salami breakfast sandwich when I had the chance. I hadn't intentionally planned it, but when I saw that Graze offers a sandwich with summer sausage it was easy to make the choice between the Chef Tory and Loaded Sandwich options. I was looking for some variation in my cured meats.

Many great options and the sandwich eater has a choice. 

Toasty muffin! Egg and cheese wings!

Yolk time.

The Sandwich - Chef Tory's Breakfast Sandwich. Sandwiches on English muffins always seem small but it really is perfect for a breakfast sandwich - they are dense enough to keep everything together and yet somehow still seem kind of light. Also, they get a nice toasty crunch. You can see this one was toasted well and I was excited for the summer sausage. It was a great change from bacon or breakfast sausage and it didn't disappoint. The chicken egg was perfect for my tastes and when paired with the squishy avocado the sandwich didn't need any other sauce or condiment. The cheese wasn't quite fully melted but American cheese almost doesn't need to be. The only real improvement on this sandwich would be the tomato - it was just a sad winter tomato. That's what happens in Wisconsin in December. The greens were fresh with a dusting of parmesan cheese and light vinaigrette.

The Result - 4.67 Surprise Sausages out of 5 Surprise Sausages. That tomato would be much better in August, of course, and $12 seems a bit high for a small breakfast sandwich, even one this good. Note that their online menu lists it at $9, which is probably just a mistake. Or maybe it's market price avocado? It doesn't matter, this is a great morning sandwich and can really spin you in the right direction for the rest of your day.

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