saffron soaked egg toast

Saffron, the gold of spices, is the most expensive product on earth, pound for pound. It takes 150 flowers to make 1 gram of saffron. Saffron flowers die the day they first bloom, so the harvest has to be speedy. Its normally way out of my price range but thankfully I took advantage of cheap spice markets in southeast Asia, buying a half ounce for less than a metro swipe. Aroma connoisseurs describe its taste as a metallic honey, with bitter, earthy tinges.

goat cheese and olive tapenade
grilled red tomatoes
hot capocollo
egg
baguette
saffron

My bread is stale and disgusting so I soaked it in egg, milk and saffron for twenty minutes, then fried it in butter. I mixed kalamata olives and goat cheese with garlic, olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper in my food processor to make a tapenade. I spread the egg toast with the olive tapenade, gently butter grilled tomatoes, and capocollo. Capocollo is a fatty Italian charcuterie, similar in deliciousness to prosciutto. This sandwich is really wild and overwhelms the mouth with flavor. Not for ascetics.

egg with arugula roasted tomatoes

To me, breakfast means fried egg on toast. This gets boring pretty quick, but instead of branching out to other foods, I just think of tasty shit to pile on top of the eggs. This is a simple breakfast sandwich I’ve been making variations on for years.

baguette
arugula
tomatoes
soft cheese
egg

I spread the bread with soft cheese, mustard and hot sauce (siracha, duh) and placed two fried eggs on top. I sautéed cherry tomatoes with fresh arugula, red onion and garlic and placed the mixture on top of the eggs. Salt and pepper, delicious.

egg toast with soft cheese and olives

I don’t have very good bread right now. Its mushy, bland flavorless cheap stuff from the bodega and it went stale in about four hours. Anyway, I decided to dry my tears and make the best of it by smothering the wonderbread taste with everything that tastes awesome in the world.

roasted red pepper
sliced olives
arugula
sopressata
baguette
soft cheese

I soaked the bread in an egg and milk to revive the moisture. Then I gently roasted a red peper with four whole cloves of garlic. I spread the egg toast with a mild soft cheese (I use laughing cow), sliced kalamata olives, arugula, and sopressata. Sopresssata is a rustic southen Italian salamae made with hot pepper. I added the red pepper and the garlic cloves, which had both become soft and sweet, balancing out the saltiness of the meat and olives. The resulting sandwich is salty, dirty, and decadent.