I've been pondering the simple Breakfast sandwich lately. Originally, I was satisfied with the crap they serve at Tim Hortons. A homogenized egg-like mixture, overcooked, and popped into an undercooked english muffin. I just don't get that place anymore. It got where it was in the Canadian Zeitgeist by adhering to a high standard of service and now they rest on their laurels.
That's besides the point. The point I was wanting to make here was that I am at odds with where I get my breakfast sandwiches from now. The flavors in an A&W BS are great (I think they add some nice salted butter to it) but the eggs from McD's are great! They cook them so well! I'd found how they do it in a few videos. It seems they have a custom made cooker, They're partially steamed. Often times you get a yolk that is broken but not cooked to powder and is instead jussst over solidified.
But why do I go pay someone else when I know I could do the same? Well a lot of the time, it's about time. But I must confess it's also because I really DO enjoy the way they cook their eggs. Often time's it's because I also want to get a coffee from them. I've heard rumors that when Tim Horton's sold themselves to some Brazilian company they let their exclusivity agreement with a Coffee Bean cultivar lapse and McD snapped it up. I believe it, Timmy's coffee sucks now.
That was until the other day when I started pondering this. I remembered when I first had a chance to play with a thermomix, I decided I wanted to try to make a sous vide eggs Benedict. If you know much about eggs, then you know the egg white and the egg yolk are two very different proteins. The whites will coagulate at around 60°C, the yolks at 65°C. This is the science of it but the devil, as they say, is in the details. Coagulated egg whites suck. You want the egg whites COOKED. Conversely, cooked egg yolks suck, you want those suckers coagulated or at least pasteurized. What came out of my sous vide that first time was a solid egg yolk and a "coagulated" egg white. I didn't know it yet, but that egg yolk was the seeds of this perfect breakfast sandwich.
I fist separated 6 eggs and dropped the yolks into a bread pan with enough vegetable oil to just cover them. I floated this pan in my sous vide bath at 65°C.
after 2 or so hours these were not done to my specifications so I bumped the temperature up to 66°C for another hour. What came out the other side was an egg yolk at the perfect done-ness for my needs.
As you can see, this makes the yolk perfectly cooked throughout and allows it to easily be spread on whatever conveyance you want.
On this one, I used just a store bought english muffin, I tried cooking the cheddar cheese into the egg. It wasn't what I was looking for. I'm planning on trying some in a croissant this weekend. I've got some Gruyere as well. I'd like to try my hand at making or buying an english muffin that has a little more passion put into it.
