Chez V is for Victory

 

It is universally acknowledged that we here at Chez Venza make this food blog stuff look easy.  Most people are not aware of the level of research that goes into what we do here.  Allow us to give you a glimpse into the process we go through for most (if not all) of our recipes (we are so hard core).

A couple of months ago we read a recipe in Bon Appetit magazine for a sandwich called “Victory at Sea.”  The recipe came from Victory Sandwich Bar in Atlanta, GA.  It is essentially an anchovy and frisée sandwich on a ciabatta roll.  Now, this is unusual sounding…so we had to investigate.  We went to ATL and tested the sandwich and were thoroughly impressed.  Having vetted the sandwich, we were finally ready to hit the kitchen.

Half of us here at Chez Venza have become enamored with typical anchovies …. especially on pizza.  They are salty and packed with flavor (and umami.)  These are the anchovies you see on the right in the tin.

However, the anchovies in this sandwich are a different beast.  These are boquerones (in Spanish) or fresh, white anchovies marinated in citrus and oil.  They are not especially salty or “fishy.”  Instead they are bright, tender, and quite delightful.  They must be refrigerated, because they are fresh and not cured like canned anchovies.  We had to go to Whole foods to find them because they’re too “fancy” for the likes of HEB.

While we were there, we went ahead and got the other specialty ingredient we needed:  frisée.  This is a kind of endive, with densely curly and faintly bitter leaves.  It’s hard to get perspective in this photo, but this is a whole head…it’s probably about the size of a grapefruit.  The guy at whole foods had such a hard time finding the produce code for this that he didn’t charge us for it.  More like FREE-sée, Amiright?

We cut the frisée from its core and dressed the greens with lemon, oil, salt, and pepper.

Now the recipe calls for the sandwich itself to be dressed with mayo, which is seasoned with lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  We aren’t huge mayo fans, so we swapped in sour cream. 

Snicket, that sauce is lemony!

As for the bread, luckily our grocery store sells frozen ciabatta rolls that we finished baking at home.  They are awesome.

A little sour cream on both sides, and a nice layer of anchovies.

Then a healthy mess of frisée.

Victory!  Light and packed with omega-3s and lemon flavor.  Trust us, this sandwich is awesome.

Egg McVenza

 

Ah, fast food.  While we all try to avoid it, it has been responsible for some great culinary innovations, much as the the gourmet snobs (such as we at Chez V) poo-poo it.  How to solve such a quandary?  Gourmet fast food homemade!

In our mind, the bottom of the fast food chain might be McDonalds, but an Egg McMuffin can be a perfect breakfast food.  Behold, the Egg McVenza!  Or… the Venza McMuffin.  Hmmm.  Egg ChezVenza?

 

So, it turns out there a ton of folks on the internet who have done this.  Lots of free advice on how to do the only puzzling part of an Egg McMuffin…. the egg.  I particularly commend you to this site.

The two suggestions provided were very similar:  bake the eggs in a ramekin or make the eggs in a muffin tin.  We did both!

 

I started with the ramekins, but as soon as I cracked the eggs, I realized that our ramekins were on the large side, and that the egg matter didn’t cover the bottom of the dish.  So I followed the previously referenced blog and did that which is almost never done at Chez Venza…. we deliberately broke a yolk.  Apparently this is authentic MickeyD’s style:  figures.

The circumference of the mega-muffin tin was much smaller, so we left yolk intact.  We also added salt, pepper, and Tabasco.

Both sets of eggs went into a 350 oven, for between 10-15 minutes.  The ramekins had to stay in longer.

MEANWHILE…

The backup band.  I’m assuming ham slices are the same as Canadian bacon… that’s all I could find.  Also, we deliberately went for the processed cheese food over Cheddar.  The McMuffin needs that low melting point cheese so it stays a little gooey.

You didn’t think I’d cut those corners off did you?

Into the toaster oven… not long enough to toast, just long enough to melt the cheese and warm the muffin.  Maybe a minute, minute and a half.

We doubt that MickeyD’s does this, but we couldn’t resist throwing the ham in a hot skillet for a few minutes to develop a bit more flavor and get it hot.

Another Chez Venza innovation:  Hot pepper jelly.  Some of you may scoff at the idea of adding jelly to an egg sandwich.  To these cretins we say:  it’s awesome.  A bit harsh we know, but don’t scoff at us!

Test case #1: Ramekin eggs.

As you can see, the yolks have cooked hard.  The great part about the ramekin eggs is that the eggs are nearly a perfect size for the muffin.  Egg in every bite.

Test case #2:  Muffin tin McMuffin muffins.  A taller, more compact egg with a great runny yolk.  Best eaten on a plate, to catch and sop up all that yolky goodness.

Which one did we choose?  Silly, reader.  We ate them all.  Go forth, and choose your own muffin adventure!

 

But seriously, go with the muffin-tin.