Panini Happy: Recipes in the Making: egg panini

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Did someone say French toast?

Do you ever open your fridge or pantry with nothing specific in mind and then a stroke of creativity hits? That happened to me the other morning when I discovered we actually, for once, had a good variety of staple items on hand. It was 10:00 AM and I was super-hungry. Doesn't it always seem that when you're hungry certain combinations all of a sudden sound good? My panini press was still set up from the night before and my brain started churning with breakfast panini ideas (check out my earlier creation: Egg, Cheese & Bacon Biscuit Panini). The results, I'm proud to say, were excellent (if a bit decadent for midweek)! Want to skip ahead? Click here for the final recipe.

Egg & Bacon French Toast Panini - Attempt #1

Bread: Sliced sourdough French toast
Meat: Bacon, two-egg omelet
Cheese: None
Condiments: None
"Goodies": None

THE INSPIRATION: My fridge and pantry. Believe it or not, it's a rather rare occasion when I have bread, eggs and milk in the kitchen at the same time. Staple items they may be, but I'm usually out of at least one. Anyway, once I realized I had the ingredients and saw that my panini press had not yet been stored away, I began to contemplate a grilled French toast. But I wasn't really in a "sweet" mood - I wanted something savory. So while the French toast was grilling, I brought out two more eggs and made an omelet. Then while I was at it, I nuked a few pieces of quick serve bacon! Fortunately, I then finally stopped myself. Whew!

THE PREPARATION: For my French toast egg mixture, I started with the usual beaten egg and a little milk. Then I decided to add in a little maple syrup - I love it when French toast has its own hint of sweetness. And since I wasn't going to be pouring maple syrup over the top this was my chance to sneak some in. I took a large slice of sourdough bread, cut it in half, dipped the halves in the egg mixture and set them onto the grill to press at 375 degrees.

While the bread was grilling, I whipped up a quick two-egg omelet: eggs, a little milk, salt and pepper. Really straightforward, nothing fancy. I wasn't exactly sure how long the French toast was going to take on the grill, so it was a bit of a timing challenge to finish the eggs just when I was ready to serve. Fortunately, assembly on this one was going to be super-quick.

THE CONSTRUCTION: Ten seconds in the microwave was all my two slices of quick serve bacon needed to heat up. I lay the bacon on one piece of the French toast, added the omelet and topped it with the other toast. That was it!

THE RESULTS: So good! Simple is often best and that was definitely the case here - this was one excellent breakfast sandwich. The crispy French toast with its hint of maple syrup gave a nice caramelized crunch as I bit into the sandwich. The saltiness from the eggs and bacon and slight heat from the black pepper made the whole thing a bit of a taste festival. I didn't add any cheese or condiments and I didn't miss them at all. The eggs, bacon and French toast were enough on their own to create a most satisfying breakfast treat.

Get the final recipe!

NOTE: Admittedly, this one pushed the limits of what would qualify as a panino. But, strictly speaking, panino just means "sandwich", and I did grill a major component, so there we are!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Eggs and Cheese and Bacon - Oh My!

Don't tell your cardiologist!

Egg...cheese...bacon...biscuits...your arteries may not thank you, but your mouth sure will! In a continued effort to explore the different types of breads a panini grill can support, I decided to venture into refrigerated dough. Want to skip ahead? Click here for the final recipe.

Egg, Cheese & Bacon Biscuit Panini - Attempt #1

Bread: Biscuits

Condiment: None

Cheese: Cheddar

Meat: Omelet, Bacon

"Goodies": None

THE INSPIRATION: Some of my fondest memories of growing up took place on our annual weeklong summer family vacations. They weren't extravagant by any means - mostly road trips, visits to amusement parks, renting a house by the lake and the like. One hallmark of these vacations was fast food breakfast - we never ate it at any other time of the year but during our vacations we had it almost every day! Now, with my oh-so-refined palette I know that these meals should have been nothing to write home (or blog) about. But now they've taken on a highly nostalgic meaning to me. My favorite: the Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit at McDonald's - a savory, gratifying concoction that just made you feel good. When contemplating options for a breakfast panini sandwich recipe, my mind turned immediately to this childhood fave.

THE PREPARATION: I know that panini sandwiches generally ought to require relatively little prep and that the easiest form in which to present the eggs would be to scramble them...but I was somewhat reluctant to have loose pieces of egg. So I decided to do an omelet instead. I whisked 6 eggs with 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt, 1 teaspoon of dried basil, 2 tablespoons of milk and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper. When I looked at the mixture, I was a little concerned over the volume of basil - there was a whole lot of green floating in there! Oh well, it's an experiment.

I sprayed an 8" saute pan with cooking spray, poured in the eggs and cooked them over medium heat for 8 minutes. The bottom was well cooked, but the top was still pretty runny so I finished it off in the oven at 400 degrees for another 5 minutes. When it came out, I had a 1/2"-thick little basil frittata. I inverted it onto a cutting board and divided it into four pieces.

THE CONSTRUCTION: With the eggs prepared, it was time to build the sandwich; I turned on the panini grill to 350 degrees. I wanted to see whether it would be possible to simultaneously bake the biscuits and grill the sandwich on the panini grill. So I took an uncooked biscuit off of the roll of refrigerated dough and cut it in half lengthwise with a pair of scissors to create top and bottom halves and lay them on a piece of parchment paper. Starting from the bottom, I layered the bottom biscuit half, a piece of the omelet, ready-cooked bacon (one trip ripped into two halves), a slice of mild cheddar cheese and the top biscuit half.

THE RESULTS: I could tell this wasn't going to work before I even got the sandwich to the grill! The hot omelet had begun to melt the bottom biscuit half from the moment the two made contact - by the time I'd finished assembling the sandwich and lifted it up the bottom biscuit was a stretchy mess. Nevertheless, I went ahead and put it on the panini grill, in the 4th height position - may as well see it through! The cheddar melted after about a minute, but the biscuit was obviously not even close to done. The first Panini Happy failure :-)

Egg, Cheese & Bacon Biscuit Panini - Attempt #2

For Attempt #2, I decided to start with biscuits that were already baked. I also lowered the height to the 3rd position.

THE RESULTS: Terrific! The grilled biscuit got a nice crispy, toasted exterior while remaining soft inside. I had previously been concerned about how much basil was in the eggs, but I had no reason to worry - it gave great flavor while not being overpowering. The cheddar melted well and the bacon's salty-sweet flavor was a wonderful complement. If only the biscuit hadn't gotten so smashed - the bread had gotten bit thinner than I'd have liked, due to the pressing. So I decided to go for one more Attempt.

Egg, Cheese & Bacon Biscuit Panini - Attempt #3