Sunday Night Special: Fried Egg Sandwich

It's Sunday night. The house is tidy (well as tidy as it's gonna get with seven cats in residence ). The clean laundry is folded and put away. The garbage has been hauled to the curb for tomorrow's pick-up. All that's left to do is check in with you, dear readers, and enjoy my family's traditional Sunday night dinner: a fried egg sandwich.

I have been eating fried egg sandwiches on Sunday nights for as long as I can remember.

In my family, the Sunday noon meal has always been the big pull-out-the-stops meat and three plus dessert meal eaten on the good china around a table with a tablecloth (or at least place mats). At least twice a month, we would enjoy these at my grandparents' house on Point Cadet.


Those feasts usually revolved around baked or fried chicken, a roast (pork or beef) studded with garlic and falling apart, rice and gravy with Parmesan cheese, potato salad and deviled eggs (both covered with a generous coating of paprika -- Nona loved the stuff), and canned green peas. Nona wouldn't have known a leafy green vegetable if one had bitten her.

After the big noon meal, the kids headed outside to play hide and seek, walk on the fishing bridge or go to Rosetti's for ice cream. The adults cleared the table, cleaned up the kitchen, played cards, talked politics and told stories and jokes until dark. Everyone laughed a lot.

When we got home, as full as we still were, my mother insisted we eat a "little something" before we went to bed. Three daily meals -- whether you needed them or not -- was an iron-clad commandment in our household. That "little something" usually turned out to be a fried-egg sandwich.

When I moved out on my own, I continued the tradition -- mostly because eggs were about the only thing I could afford to eat for many years. Now I just do it (my cholesterol level permitting) cause I like 'em.

To me a simple fried egg sandwich, on fresh white bread, was, is and will always be the coda on a weekend well-spent.

It wouldn't be Sunday night without one.

Fried Egg Sandwich

Melt a pat of margarine or butter over medium heat in a non-stick pan until it stops bubbling. Break a large egg into the hot skillet. When the egg white has set, burst the yolk, using a spatula to spread the yolk into all the cracks and crevices of the cooked egg. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, flip the egg, and cook until the bottom is just set but still a little "juicy" and the lacy outer edges of the egg are brown and crispy.

Flip the fried egg onto a piece of FRESH white sandwich bread, top with a second slice. That's it. No mayo or other condiments (except for a drop or two of hot sauce if you must). For the optimal sandwich you want white bread, but it must be super soft and fresh or the sandwich won't be any good.. If your bread is past its prime, lightly toast it first.

Since I am not normally a "white bread" person, I keep a loaf in the freezer so I can thaw out the slices for this very purpose. It works.