Spiced Plum and Cheese Omelette Ciabatta Sandwich
The changing of the seasons, the short gap before the next season takes over, is a great gift. It's a time that tends to fill me with great excitement. Autumn's waiting in the wings, yet summer isn't ready to say goodbye. There's no need to rush, I can indulge in Vorfreude - the German word for the happiness and excitement that we feel before a special event. The idea of coziness and comfort food, long walks in the forest and snuggly sofa time is already more than appealing. I replace my flowery dresses with a pair of jeans and a cardigan and spend just as much time outside as I did in the past few months. The sun is lower and wraps the world around me in a gorgeous golden glow, everything looks softer and warmer. My appetite shifts from lighter treats to the richer pleasures of the kitchen, and my mood is full of joy and curiosity for everything that the next couple months will bring into my life.
Cooking plums with spices is a celebration of late summer, but with a subtle nod towards the festive season. I had this aromatic duo in mind when Leerdammer asked me to create a new sandwich, a sandwich that fits my current mood. The fruit caramelized in sugar, cinnamon, and coriander seeds, sits on top of a rich cheese omelette. This whole juicy joy is layered in a soft ciabatta bread, sprinkled with a bit of fresh thyme. Just one bite and I'm ready to celebrate the season. I love to indulge in the produce that every month of the year offers, especially when there's fresh bread on the table: Be it in my Cheese, Bacon, and Egg Sandwich with Garden Vegetables, a summery light creation in June, or the pleasures of zucchini cheese fritters and strawberries piled between two slices of bread. Maybe I should come up with a sandwich calendar one day.
I usually spend late September and October experimenting with roots and winter squash, with grapes, plums, and apples. I try out new meat dishes and enjoy my trusted classics. But this year, I'll 'lose' a month in the kitchen. I'll be traveling through Europe and the US pretty much all of October to launch my book and to finally present my recipes, printed on paper, physically and not just in the digital spheres of the world. As much as I know that I'll miss my kitchen, I can't say that this circumstance fills me with sadness. I'm nervous, excited, even a bit hysterical at times, but I can't wait to finally open the pages of the Eat In My kitchen book and show it to all the people who I'm going to meet soon.
To make up for the kitchen break ahead of me, I spent the past few weeks cooking and baking with all the ingredients that I'll miss out on. Plums are at the top of my list - for sweet and savoury dishes. If I had to choose one flavour to describe this time of the year, it would be plums. I love their sour fruitiness, especially cooked, in combination with aromatic spices. Add them to a bowl of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream and you can still taste summer, turn them into a fragrant chutney and stir them into the thick sauce of a venison stew in a couple months and you're ready for winter. Dumplings, jam, cakes, or sandwiches, there's no recipe that this fruit can't deal with.
This post has been sponsored by Leerdammer.
Spiced Plum and Cheese Omelette Ciabatta Sandwich
Makes 2 Sandwiches
For the caramelized plums
granulated sugar 2 tablespoons
unsalted butter 2 tablespoons
coriander seeds, crushed in a mortar, 1 teaspoon
ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon
large plums, cut into quarters, 4
For the omelette
organic eggs 3
heavy cream 60ml / 1/4 cup
freshly grated nutmeg
fine sea salt
ground pepper
butter 1 teaspoon
For the sandwich
lettuce leaves 2-4
small ciabatta bread, cut into 2 buns, each cut in half, 1
Leerdammer cheese, thinly sliced, about 60g / 2 ounces
a few fresh thyme leaves
black peppercorns, crushed in a mortar
For the caramelized plums, in a medium, heavy pan, heat the sugar, butter, and spices over medium high heat, stir, and add the plums as soon as the butter is golden and sizzling. Cook the plums for about 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden and soft. Turn them gently one by one, and mind that they keep their shape. Take the pan off the heat.
For the omelette, whisk the eggs and heavy cream and season with nutmeg, salt, and ground pepper. In a small, heavy or non-stick pan, heat the butter over medium-high heat. Pour the egg mixture into the pan, scramble very lightly and fold onto itself. When the bottom side starts to become golden flip the omelette around. Cook it shortly from the other side for about a minute or until the omelette is just set. Take the pan off the heat and cut the omelette into large chunks.
Arrange the lettuce on top of the two bottoms of the buns. Divide the warm omelette between the buns, spread the cheese on top, then finish it off with the warm caramelized plums. Pour the buttery juices from the pan used for the plums over the fruit and sprinkle with thyme and a little crushed black pepper. Close the bun, squeeze a little - gently! - and enjoy!
Bacon, Egg and Cheese Sandwich with Garden Vegetables
In a couple weeks I'll be off to Malta and my heart is already there. There isn't a single day that passes without thinking of my family and friends in the Mediterranean. With every month that summer gets closer, I feel the urge to go there and the pain of not yet being there becomes almost unbearable. As much as I love Berlin - it's my home - I see myself spending far more time on my beloved archipelago south of Sicily.
You can ask any Maltese person living abroad what he or she misses the most and almost everybody will tell you the sea and family. I'm not Maltese, but I agree. With every passing year I feel closer and closer to the life we live there. Being surrounded by the sea and the people who are so important in my life is a great gift I don't really want to let go off, but it's also the food, the pace, the culture and lifestyle that makes me miss this place so much.
In two weeks I'll be starting my days with a cup of tea in my Maltese mama's garden, sitting under her citrus trees. Then I'll pick some honey sweet fruits and crisp vegetables from my favourite mobile vegetable truck in Msida and prepare a luscious breakfast. For whatever reason we started the ritual to have very opulent and rich breakfast sandwiches when we live in the South. If we leave out my spontaneous (but very regular) visits to bakeries, cafés and pastizzi shops, we only eat twice during the day: before we go to the beach and afterwards, and both meals are little feasts. We end our days with Mediterranean inspired dishes but we start the day following the small country's British tradition. There are fried eggs, different kind of cheese, and a bit of meat on the table. Be it crisp bacon or a selection of course sausages from our butcher in Sliema - classic Maltese style with fennel and coriander or English sausage with apple and sage - our breakfast is quite a hearty affair, often sandwiched between two slices of Malta's amazing sourdough bread. But what comes with baked beans in the cold North is served with fresh garden vegetables in the South. Juicy cucumber and tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, or sautéed zucchini - qarabali in Maltese - there are always the freshest fruits from the garden involved. You could easily leave out the meat and keep it light and vegetarian, sliced fennel bulb, sautéed onions, or a juicy caponata are nice too, but the current star of the toast scene - thinly sliced avocado - made it into my creation, along with cucumber and red bell pepper.
This is the third sandwich of the tasty trilogy I created for Leerdamer:
Egg, Bacon and Cheese Sandwich with Garden Vegetables
Makes 2 large sandwiches
olive oil
bacon 8 thin slices
organic eggs 4
flaky sea salt
peppercorns, crushed in a mortar
large rustic buns, cut in half, 2
Leerdammer cheese, or another mild hard cheese, very thinly sliced, about 170g / 6 ounces
small red bell pepper (and or tomato), cut into rings, 1
small organic cucumber, rinsed and scrubbed, very thinly sliced with a mandoline or cheese slicer, 1
medium ripe avocado, very thinly sliced with a mandoline or cheese slicer, 1
In a heavy pan, heat a splash of olive oil and cook the bacon until golden brown and crispy. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper, but leave the fat in the pan.
In the pan used to cook the bacon, cook the eggs for a few minutes until the egg yolk is still liquid, season with flaky sea salt and crushed pepper.
Divide the cheese between the bottom sides of the buns and arrange the bacon and vegetables on top. Drizzle with a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Finish it off with 2 eggs for each sandwich and close the bun. Squeeze and enjoy!
