Gourmet BLT with Fried Egg and Melted Cheese

Ingredients

• Sandwich

Preparation

1. The Complete Recipe: BLT with Melted Cheese and a Fried Egg
2. Ingredients
3. 2 slices crusty country-style bread
4. Monterey Jack cheese, sliced thin
5. Mayonnaise
6. 2 leaves crunchy lettuce, such as iceberg, romaine, or butter lettuce
7. 3 slices tomato
8. 4 slices applewood bacon,
9. cooked crisp
10. 1 egg
11. 1 tbsp unsalted butter


12. Preheat oven to 400˚; toast both slices of bread. Cover one with cheese and set in the oven to melt, approximately four minutes.


13. Spread mayonnaise onto one side of the other piece of bread, cover with lettuce, then set tomato slices atop the lettuce.


14. Fry the bacon (press often to avoid curling), then carefully layer it onto the melted cheese.


15. Fry an egg — without breaking the yolk — then carefully lay it on top of the bacon.
16. (Tip: Keep a layer of lettuce between bread and tomato so your sandwich doesn’t turn soggy.)


17. Slipping the egg onto the layered bacon, Keller takes care to position the yolk directly in the sandwich’s middle. Then he sets the other piece of bread, complete with tomato slices and lettuce, on top. Finally, Keller slices gently through the upper piece of bread, deliberately piercing the egg yolk so that it oozes orange throughout the sandwich. “Are you hungry?” Keller asks me. “I kind of feel like a snack.” “Let’s have a snack,” I reply. And with that, we each pick up half of the best sandwich in the world and wolf it down.


18. Frying the Egg
19. A runny egg yolk is one of nature’s great gastronomical miracles, a ready-made sauce of creamy richness, and it’s critical to the success of this sandwich. So I’m careful not to break the yolk, as I crack the egg into a small bowl and again as I slip it into a non-stick skillet — one that has a tablespoon of foaming butter in it — over medium-high heat. Once the egg white turns opaque, we move the skillet into the oven, just until the upper surface of the yolk sets.


20. Layering the Bacon: “Every piece of bacon has a wide end and a skinny end, right? So you alternate as you work your way down, for even distribution. Lay one crisp bacon slice after another atop the melted cheese so that its curvature aligns with the upper, curved edge of the bread. Each piece should slightly overlap the piece before it.”