# Ciabatta Egg Sandwich fusion or confusion?



## bbally (Nov 5, 2007)

When you have a a long list of honey do-s in the early Sunday morning, there will be no peace until the list is completed. This takes fuel, lots of fuel to complete. Since I had made the Ciabatta Bread for the sourdough "mother" instruction program I thought it would be nice to show an interesting use for the bread. While there is all the standard stuff, with pasta, with antipasto, etc., etc. But many people forget the cheapest but richly nutritious egg. And so we will explore a variant of the classic, Egg, peppers, and sausage sandwich eaten by Italians the world over! The egg is the cheapest priced commercial protein per pound in the United States. Many times a one pound package of eggs (12 large eggs) will be about $1.00 (USD) which is an amazing deal. This holds true in most other countries, the egg is wonderful and priced for a large majority to afford this pound of protein. Of course we can not just do the standard Italian sausage and egg, not on your life!

We had excellent peppers this year, and so we will use a variety of colored peppers for this dish. My selection is all bell peppers. But you can mix and match whatever your taste tells you to start with in the pepper category.







While these were being prepped I selected the sausage. Chorizo it will be, hey the spice had to come from somewhere, this fine Mexican sausage gets its 
roots in Portugal and adds in the spice we want in an egg sandwich! With it well on the way I will add the peppers to the sauté and start the breakfast game.






While my peppers are sweating to tenderize them a little, I prepare the eggs. I break the eggs into a clear glass bowl and remove the chalazae as I hate those things rolling around in my scramble eggs. Just no call for it, no real reason to remove them other than I don't want them sitting there dorking up my nice yellow scrambled eggs. After Chalazae removal I whisk the eggs to a nice silken yellowish orange. Not all the way to ribbons, but a good way toward ribbons.






Now I am and under and then flip person. I know some that would Frittata this dish, and I can live with the oven finish, but for me, sauté work is play! I love it and so I use my cooking spatula and lift continually around the edges of the egg, letting uncooked egg run beneath the cooked egg building the omelet higher and higher. Until I have almost all the egg set up. Then I flip the thing. This is the only place I use non-stick.

While they are setting up a little I prepare the Ciabatta bread I made the day before. I had the ciabatta with our oyster stew the prior evening. And had half a "Slipper" left over. What is a chef to do? Use it up of course!






This is five eggs, 1.5 bell peppers and a 1/3 pound of Chorizo. This is a stick with you sandwich. You could add cheese to it, but I don't as I really think a lot of cheeses cover up the flavor of all the other components when it comes to egg presentations. And with this many things going on in a sandwich why add more?







I get the lid mashed down onto it and then I will dress it up a little. Cut it in half (There are two of us, the one that completes the work on the list and the one who makes the list and keeps the completer husband laborer on task.) 
But with some fresh squeezed OJ and the earlier coffee this will take me to lunch time.






What we have here is a little left over homemade ciabatta, couple of diced halves of bells pepper left over from some other recipe, some chorizo that is always on hand in my kitchen, and the wonderful, incredible, inexpensive perfect 
protein named the EGG!!

'nuff said, 'til we talk again, get up early and make a breakfast that is outside you normal box of comfortable cooking, you'll be glad you did!

Chef Bob Ballantyne
The Cowboy and The Rose Catering
Grand Junction, Colorado, USA


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