Feast your eyes, my friends: the best breakfast sandwich. Ever. I call it… the breakfast banh mi.
I’ve been eating this for days on end, and I think we’ve reached a point where it has been fully optimized and further customization is meaningless. There are a lot of components that make this great, and which add a ton of complexity to it. There’s the vinegary hummmm of the homemade carrot and daikon pickles; the spicy pop of Sriracha sauce; the war between the buttery eggs and salty/crispy lạp xưởng (Chinese sausage); the Maggi sauce soaked into toasty French bread; and the welcome coolness of cilantro. None of the ingredients are redundant, and work together to get you moaning and picking up the crumbs with your fingers.Ahhh.
At this point, I can’t even imagine my life without this sandwich. Everything else just pales in comparison. Sex? Alcohol? Bicycling? They’re all ranch dressing compared to the world-shaking twists and turns of breakfast banh mi!
And here’s a philosophical side question: can you have a banh mi without pate? Definitely not if it’s the classic version. But in this case, the pate and the eggs would generate a textural disaster! (Too bad, since I have a can of foie gras that’s burning a hole in my refrigerator.) When you create a dish, you generally want to avoid similar textures. Otherwise, the diner comes away from it with an overpowering sense of its softness (or brittleness, or whatever). I do, however, use mayo in this sandwich, just because I like the taste and it doesn’t overstep its boundaries too much.
Breakfast Banh Mi
Fry up some slices of lạp xưởng in oil. When they crisp up, set them on a paper towel and plate to drain. Pour off the excess oil from the pan. Add sliced green onion to the pan, and saute on low heat . Once it’s lightly cooked, add two whisked eggs and scramble with the sausage. Set aside.
Warm up a sandwich-sized piece of baguette in a toaster oven or oven oven.
Assemble! I like to go (from bottom up) eggs, Maggi, carrot and daikon pickles, Sriracha, cilantro, mayonnaise, and even more Maggi.
