Men's Journal

The 15-Minute Feast

The scene: In the 2004 romantic comedy Spanglish, John Clasky, a three-star fine-dining chef played by Adam Sandler — and modeled after Keller — comes home hungry, late at night.

The challenge, as put to Keller by Sandler himself: What, exactly, would a chef make himself to eat after work? Keller’s answer: a sandwich so rich and soul-satisfying I shall forever after consider it the last word in hangover cures, the perfect accompaniment to a Sunday-afternoon ball game, exactly the right put-out for poker with the boys. Put simply, it’s a BLT plus melted cheese and a fried egg — but as with all of Keller’s food, God is in the details.

The Complete Recipe: BLT with Melted Cheese and a Fried Egg

Ingredients

2 slices crusty country-style bread

Monterey Jack cheese, sliced thin

Mayonnaise

2 leaves crunchy lettuce, such as iceberg, romaine, or butter lettuce

3 slices tomato

4 slices applewood bacon,

cooked crisp

1 egg

1 tbsp unsalted butter

Step 1

Preheat oven to 400˚; toast both slices of bread. Cover one with cheese and set in the oven to melt, approximately four minutes.

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Step 2

Spread mayonnaise onto one side of the other piece of bread, cover with lettuce, then set tomato slices atop the lettuce.

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Step 3

Fry the bacon (press often to avoid curling), then carefully layer it onto the melted cheese.
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Step 4

Fry an egg — without breaking the yolk — then carefully lay it on top of the bacon.

(Tip: Keep a layer of lettuce between bread and tomato so your sandwich doesn’t turn soggy.)
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Step 5

Slipping the egg onto the layered bacon, Keller takes care to position the yolk directly in the sandwich’s middle. Then he sets the other piece of bread, complete with tomato slices and lettuce, on top. Finally, Keller slices gently through the upper piece of bread, deliberately piercing the egg yolk so that it oozes orange throughout the sandwich. “Are you hungry?” Keller asks me. “I kind of feel like a snack.” “Let’s have a snack,” I reply. And with that, we each pick up half of the best sandwich in the world and wolf it down.

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.Keller On…

Layering the Bacon: “Every piece of bacon has a wide end and a skinny end, right? So you alternate as you work your way down, for even distribution. Lay one crisp bacon slice after another atop the melted cheese so that its curvature aligns with the upper, curved edge of the bread. Each piece should slightly overlap the piece before it.”

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Frying the Egg

A runny egg yolk is one of nature’s great gastronomical miracles, a ready-made sauce of creamy richness, and it’s critical to the success of this sandwich. So I’m careful not to break the yolk, as I crack the egg into a small bowl and again as I slip it into a non-stick skillet — one that has a tablespoon of foaming butter in it — over medium-high heat. Once the egg white turns opaque, we move the skillet into the oven, just until the upper surface of the yolk sets.

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Next: How to roast a restaurant-quality rack of lamb

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This article first appeared in the August 2010 issue of Men’s Journal.