Ode to a Fried Egg Sandwich

My husband presented me with a fried egg sandwich this morning. Although I taught him the fried egg sandwich basics many years ago, he’s gone on to make them his own; the fried egg sandwiches he makes me are very much his fried egg sandwiches, though he adds Worcerstershire sauce because he knows I love it. Having not grown up eating Worcerstershire sauce on his steak and his eggs, he doesn’t have the same strong feelings about it that I do.

His loss.

My mom taught me to make fried egg sandwiches; we didn’t make them often but when we did, they were a major treat, and I couldn’t have been older than 13 when she showed me her secrets. We had a toaster oven, rather than a pop-up toaster, which was good for fried egg sandwiches, and great for English muffins and cheese, or (my especial favourite) toast topped with cheddar cheese and slices of ripe avocado. That’s right; my mom introduced me to the pleasures of avocado toast (with cheese) decades before it became A Thing.

Having my husband whip up a fried egg sandwich this morning, while I was in the shower, reminded me - as it always does - how sharing the recipes we enjoy with the people we care about is, at heart, an act of love, and when they then make those recipes for you, that too is an act of love. I was reminded of the morning I taught him to make a fried egg sandwich, as he handed me my plate; that brought back memories of making fried egg sandwiches with my mom decades ago, crowded around our little toaster oven, eating while leaning over the sink so the yolk would run off our fingers and down the drain with a minimum of mess. (Is there anything more satisfying to eat that the warm, runny yolk of a perfectly fried egg? I’m not sure there is.)

Someday I’ll pass on my fried egg sandwich recipe to my kid, and my husband will pass on his version, and eventually our kid will develop their own, and pass it on. And hopefully eat it with loved ones, yolk running and nearly too hot, over the sink.

I’ll be in Edinburgh on Saturday and Sunday for Cymera! I’ll read a quick, five minute extract from Stay For A Spell at 5 pm in the Munro room on Saturday the 6th, and then at 11.45 on Sunday, I’m on the panel Books And Bakes with Chara Bullen and Lucy Jane Wood.

If you’re at Cymera on Saturday morning and keen to hear about my other job (as a publisher), you can find me at 10.30 am on Saturday the 6th in the Lomond room, giving a talk about sci fi, fantasy and horror publishing.

Please do come say hello if you’re around!

Just One More Thing - mom’s fried egg sandwich

You need two slices of bread (I really like whole grain for a fried egg sandwich), one fresh egg, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, pepper (freshly ground if you’ve got it), and mayo.

Heat your skillet. As soon as it’s ready (a drop of water dances across it), pop your toast into the toaster and crack your egg into a bowl carefully, so the yolk doesn’t break. Then slide it onto the skillet. The egg is fried when the white’s edges just begin to brown and the albumen becomes opaque. Your toast and egg should be ready at about the same time, and you want the whole thing to be nice and hot, so timing is essential here! You may have to experiment, alas, to perfect it. All those fried egg sandwiches you’ll have to eat; woe.

When the toast is ready, slather one slice with mayo and the other with the Lea & Perrins, then slide your egg carefully onto one slice and grind some pepper over it before topping it off with the second. Eat while piping hot, over a plate or the sink so you can get good and messy. Rinse and repeat!

According to Wikipedia, “the precise recipe [of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce] has been a trade secret, but an original 19th-century list of ingredients was found in a skip at the factory in 2009 and includes vinegar, molasses, sugar, salt, anchovies, tamarind extract, onions, and garlic and other ingredients which may include cloves, soy sauce, lemons, pickles and peppers.”

Also, the US version uses distilled white vinegar and the UK version uses malt vinegar. Obviously this calls for a taste test.

Thanks for reading!

Fried egg photo by Christian Cueni on Unsplash