learnings from a poorly-executed sandwich
i often take sad-looking shots of sandwiches but none of them tasted sad until this week’s egg, arugula, aioli breakfast sandwich. this was a source of great disappointment to my mouth and a major blow to my deeply-held belief in the primacy of my friend and one-time roommate, J’s, recipes.
shaken, i spent the next 48 hours on long walks communing with nature and, after a vulnerable discussion with a pigeon, i came to the conclusion that i made a bad sandwich. here’s why:
- the bread was too hard and dense for ingredients this soft, taking away from the sandwich’s texture and structural integrity.
- there wasn’t enough crunch. it needed more arugula and ideally more crunchy bread.
- the eggs were dry and under-seasoned. they needed more salt and pepper.
- there wasn’t enough richness to balance the tart aioli.
i remade the sandwich. it sounds too simple to be good, but this recipe is truly fantastic.
here is how i reworked a bad sandwich from earlier this week and made it delicious.
1. toast soft bread, like a deli roll, with some butter. make it crunchy and then ask it where you can find the nearest co-op that sells ethically-sourced quinoa in bulk.
2. make some lemon-garlic aioli and smear it! smear it good!
3. throw some slightly runny, well-seasoned, and buttery eggs on your sandwich. yum.
4. throw arugula on your sandwich. can you still see the sandwich? keep going.
5. a precariously perched egg, arugula, and aioli sandwich.
