Poached Egg, Grilled Aubergine and Crisp Bacon Sandwich
Excitement in the kitchen! I made my first poached egg and it worked out perfectly. After a quick introduction to the art of egg poaching on Food52 I felt ready to give this challenge a try. To my surprise, it was much easier than I had expected so I could take my time and focus on the other ingredients for this week's sandwich, grilled aubergine and crisp bacon.
My inspiration came from the great Sabih sandwich. I thought about it in the past couple days, how it combines all that lusciousness between two slices of bread, rich hummus, grilled aubergine and a boiled egg merged to true deliciousness. It could easily be too much but somehow this Middle Eastern sandwich classic does it just right. The egg and the eggplant are a great duo, they complement each other perfectly, so I used this idea but added a new flavour, salty bacon. I packed everything in between a large baguette bun and finished it off with some crunchy parsley leaves. I should warn you, this is more than a snack, it's a proper meal, but anything smaller wouldn't have worked, this sandwich has the same addictive quality as the scrumptious Sabih!
Poached Egg, Grilled Aubergine and Bacon Sandwich
For 2 large sandwiches you need
large, crunchy baguette buns, cut in half, 2
aubergine, cut into 1/2cm / 1/4" slices, 1
breakfast bacon 6 slices
eggs 2-4
olive oil
coarse sea salt and pepper
fresh parsley leaves, a small handful
Brush the aubergine slices with olive oil on both sides, season with salt and pepper and put them under the grill for about 6-7 minutes on each side. Watch them as they should be golden, partly brown, but not burned. Take them out of the oven and put the slices on top of each other on a plate, that will keep them moist.
Heat a little olive oil in a pan and fry the bacon for a few minutes on each side on medium heat until golden brown and crisp. Lay them on kitchen paper to remove excess fat.
Put 2-3 slices of grilled aubergine on the bottom side of each bun and lay 2-3 slices of bacon on top.
In a saucepan, bring water to the boil, add some salt and turn down the temperature, it should be simmering, not bubbling! Crack an egg open and put it into a small bowl. Put a large spoon (the largest you have) on the surface of the simmering water and gently pour the egg onto the spoon. Hold the spoon with the egg in the water and put the egg back into place with a second tablespoon if it slips off the spoon (I had to do this a couple times). It needs around 3 minutes. When the egg is done, take the spoon out, let the excess water drip off and carefully scrape the poached egg onto the fried bacon with a second spoon. Sprinkle with parsley, close the bun and enjoy!
It's best to poach one egg at a time but if you are impatient, you can cook two at once. In that case, let the first egg float in the water after cooking it on the spoon for 1 1/2 minutes (mind that it doesn't stick to the bottom when you let it float). Poach the second egg on the spoon and take both eggs out after they have cooked for 3 minutes each.
Linguine with Chickpeas, Grilled Aubergine and Lemon
What an amazing anniversary! Thank you so much for your sweet wishes and support of eat in my kitchen. It's been a perfect celebration of an extraordinary year and the beginning of a new chapter, the second year of the blog!
Let's start the new week with an easy pasta dish, chickpeas (canned, so there's no soaking and cooking involved), grilled aubergine slices, lemon and basil! I got the inspiration for this composition from a sandwich which is very popular in Israel, it made it onto the blog last January, the fantastic Sabih. Velvety hummus, grilled aubergines and a boiled egg on juicy homemade olive bread, it tastes divine! Our godchild's father told me about this sandwich classic from his home country, he praised it with such passion that I had to try it. It became a new standard, with great potential to inspire various recipes. For my linguine, I left out the egg, although I think it would have fit but instead I added lemon and basil for an aromatic southern Mediterranean feeling. The aubergine and chickpeas were so smooth, almost sweet, that it needed a bit of a contrast, a task that my beloved lemon zest always manages with ease.
When I grill aubergines, I always prepare two or three of them right away. You can use them for your pizza or roll them up with ricotta. Although they need (and soak up) quite a bit of olive oil, I found that you can minimize it by stacking them on top of each other as soon as you take them out of the oven. I brush them with a thin layer of oil on both sides before they cook. Don't worry, they tend to look a bit dry at first when they are done but they will turn into perfect juicy and oily bites after a couple minutes of soaking and softening each other.
Linguine with Chickpeas, Grilled Aubergine and Lemon
For 4 people you need
linguine pasta 400g / 14 ounces
chickpeas, canned, rinsed and drained, 300g / 10.5 ounces
large aubergine, cut into 1/2cm / 1/4″ slices, 1
garlic, crushed, 1 clove
olive oil
salt
black peppercorns, crushed in a mortar, for the topping, to taste
lemon zest, for the topping, to taste
basil leaves, a small handful
Cook the pasta in salted water al dente and keep some of the cooking water.
Brush the aubergines with olive oil on both sides, season them with salt and pepper and grill them in the oven until golden brown on both sides, they will darken partly but that’s fine. Mine needed 7 minutes on one side and 5 minutes on the other but that depends on the oven. Set the aubergines aside and stack them, that will keep them moist and soft. Cut them into thick slices.
In a pan, heat a splash of olive oil, add the garlic and cook it for 1 minute on medium heat. Add the chickpeas, season with salt and pepper, close with a lid and cook for 4 minutes on medium-low heat. Add the pasta and a little of the water they cooked in and season with salt. Stir in the aubergine and sprinkle with the crushed black peppercorns, lemon zest and basil.
Enjoy warm or with short pasta as a salad.
