cook: bodega sandwich at home

It's Friendsgiving day for me and the neighbors, and I want a breakfast to hold me until 2:00 p.m. when the turkey will be served. I posted before about L.A.'s Eggslut type of breakfast sandwich, but really I'm longing to return to NYC and taste for myself an iconic bodega sandwich. Before Anthony Bourdain mentioned it on one of his t.v. shows, I'd read about the bodega sandwich being the mainstay for Gabrielle Hamilton in her memoir of Blood, Bones, and Butter. 

One website says:

Bourdain lists bacon, kaiser rolls, eggs, salt, freshly ground pepper, and slices of American or Swiss cheese as the ingredients. Cook the bacon on the griddle until done but not burnt. Remove the bacon and place the rolls in the bacon grease sliced side down until they have absorbed the grease and gotten a bit toasted. Place bacon on set aside rolls.

Crack the eggs in a bowl with salt and pepper. Pour on the griddle but remember you aren’t scrambling the eggs. It’s more like an omelet, so it can fit in a sandwich. Top the eggs with the cheese and cook until good and melty. Chop the egg and cheese to fit in rolls, place on the bacon, and top with the other half of the roll. Wrap the sandwich in foil for portability. Serve with a bad cup of coffee. 

I can't cook the bodega breakfast sandwich without that flat top and American cheese, which I never have in my fridge. Nor can I handle that much grease unless I'm hungover. I've been making do instead with a bolilo or Kaiser roll if Safeway has it, brown sugar ham or sausage and Cheddar cheese grilled on my cast iron because really I just wanna hop on a plane over to JFK and spend another long weekend in Brooklyn, specifically the Red Hook, to eat that sandwich. 

 

And this morning, I was even too lazy to break out the bigger cast iron and resorted to my oven to toast the bread, heat the ham, and melt the cheese. 

At least I oiled up my mini cast iron to fry an egg with firm whites and a runny yolk. 

I also suppose a bodega sandwich in NYC doesn't need the hot sauce either.

  

I liked my semi-lazy sandwich.          

But note to self. Bolilo rolls are better for a Cal-Mex breakfast sandwich.