Steak sandwich with fried egg, beetroot and spinach

One day maybe 2 years ago, I was in the kitchen making brunch. For those of you who know me better, breakfast or brunch usually involve some form of eggs. I usually opt for the poached or fried variety using free range or organic eggs. The yolk has to be runny as runny can be and seasoned to perfection.

That one fateful day, I cracked open an egg that was only 1 week old purchased from a certain supermarket and I had the shock of my life. How can I be shocked by a cracked egg I hear you ask? A black egg can. Yes you read right, the egg was so black that I wouldn’t be surprised if the chicken ate charcoal and drank black ink! I couldn’t tell where the yolk and white were as it was just a mush of black liquid threatening to make its way onto my other perfectly fresh egg on the pan.

I frantically salvaged the rest of the dish from the frying fan although I can’t even remember what dish I was trying to make then from all the shock and horror. I think the egg was off and that’s probably an understatement.

Luckily, my tolerance for such things is quite good and I still love runny egg yolks as much as before but I do thank the egg gods that all the eggs I’ve cracked since then were pleasantly yellow and white.

2 years down the track I’m still making wonderful brunch meals. A few days ago, I made beautiful steak sandwiches with beef that mum gave me with eggs of course and my favourite beetroot.

As I’m still reasonably new to the cook-photo-serve process, my food is often cold by the time I’m done with the photos. I’m so glad Yuye is supportive of my endeavours because he always has to eat cold food nowadays but I’m trying and learning all the time to speed things up. As I really didn’t want the steak sandwich to be dead cold, I didn’t take as many photos as I wanted to but it was still very delicious!

Steak sandwich with fried egg, beetroot and spinach
Serves 2

Ingredients

• 2 thin steak pieces, the better the cut, the more tender and delicious the sandwich will be (mine was a bit small so I cheated and cut 2 thin pieces for each sandwich)
• 4 pieces of bread, I used sour dour bread
• a few pieces of beetroot
• 2 eggs
• a handful of spinach
• cheddar cheese
• Seeded and unseeded mustard (you can use just one of the other’s not available)
• beetroot relish (you can also use tomato relish)
• olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Toast the pieces of bread with cheddar cheese until lightly golden brown
2. Heat cooking oil in a flat pan on medium to high heat, fry the egg for 3-4 minutes (or longer if you don’t like runny yolks), you don’t have to flip the egg as there’s a chance to break the yolk. I usually place a lid on the pan while the egg is cooking until the top egg white has turned solid and the yolk is still squishy.
3. Season the steaks with salt and pepper.
4. Heat the pan to very high until almost smoking. Quickly place the steaks on the pan. Depending on the thickness of the steak, they usually only need 1-2 minutes on the first side until it’s golden brown. When you turn the steak around, it takes even less time to cook. This is for a medium-rare steak, but if you like your steak well done, leave them on the heat for longer. (This is also the secret to making good steaks overall :D).
5. Spread seeded and unseeded mustard and beetroot relish on a one side of the bread, then assemble together the steak, egg, beetroot and spinach.
6. Sprinkle a bit of olive oil on top and season with salt and pepper
7. Serve hot if possible – wasn’t for me

I admit, I was very bad at cutting the bread. I don’t have a proper bread knife at home! I know, I need to get one. Sorry for the unevenly cut bread, not that it’s very noticeable. Ahem. I also didn’t mean to crush the egg yolk on one of the sandwiches, but it turned out nice for the photos. 😛

Question time: Have you ever cracked open a bad egg? What is your favourite way to have egg?