How many colors can a mostly brown sandwich have?

Posted on | by Jonathan Surratt

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Read Time: 7 minutes

This week, I’m trying to beat the heat by creating as much of this great English muffin sandwich experience outside, where the heat is coming from. At first, that doesn’t sound like it makes a whole lot of sense, but doing as much cooking outside will keep your kitchen cooler, and that’s just what we’re going to attempt.

What is this sandwich?

At its most basic, this is a skirt steak sandwich with a bit of cheese inside of a homemade, toasted English muffin. To get a bit more into the weeds of the description, the steak is seared or grilled and piled on top of mashed, salted avocado, topped with blue cheese crumbles, and finished with a drizzle of hot honey to balance out the flavors.

I’m not sure how it is where you live, but here in Chicago, it’s been a fairly hot summer, and this week I didn’t want to heat up my kitchen too much, so I planned a “bake” and a sandwich with components that cooked quickly. And with the right equipment for your grill, you can make all of this outside if you want, even the English muffins.

Here’s a painting I made of this Black, blue, and green sandwich.

Black and blue?

I remember eating and seeing black and blue burgers on restaurant menus way back in the late 1980s. When I was thinking about making a blackened skirt steak, I remembered the combination and did a little googling in the hopes that I would discover that it has a fun history to read about, and then write about.

Well, it turns out there’s not a whole lot online about any sort of history of the black and blue burger, which contains a burger that has been “blackened” with Cajun or Creole seasonings paired with blue cheese. The phrase “black and blue” is also used when discussing a super rare steak, but that’s not what we’re getting into in this blog post. We’re talking about the combo of blackened meat and blue cheese.

And then we’re packing those into some bread that you don’t have to bake.

English muffins

English muffins are basically just rolls or buns that are cooked on a griddle or hot pan instead of being baked. Basically, you can think of them as something like yeast-filled, fluffy pancakes.

In theory, the cooking method needed here might mean that you won’t heat up your kitchen quite as much as you would if you had to heat your oven up to 400+ degrees during summer. You’ll still have to have a stove eye on low, but in my experience, it shouldn’t warm your house up quite as much as baking buns does.

And, if you have a cast iron pan or griddle (or even better, one of those large gas-powered outdoor griddles), you can really keep your kitchen cool by doing all of this on a gas or charcoal grill.

You can easily make English muffins on a grill with a cast-iron skillet or griddle.
Up to this point, English muffins are just like making buns.
But then everything changes because these are cooked on a hot surface instead of inside the oven.
Using cornmeal or semolina will help the dough to be easier to move from the parchment to the skillet.

You can actually cook pretty much any dough in this method, not just English muffins. I have even cooked biscuits on the grill in this manner. You just end up with bread that has two seared sides, instead of just the bottom getting seared.

The main thing you need to concern yourself with when griddling dough is the temperature of the hot surface. It needs to be a dry pan, and it needs to be kept on low. The internal temperature of the English muffin needs to hit around 200°F (93°C) for it to be fully cooked through. If the exterior of the muffin starts to brown too quickly, you can finish the muffins in an oven, or if you’re grilling, just close the lid on your grill to help bake the interior.

These two aren’t English muffins; they are biscuit dough that I cooked in a skillet on my gas grill in 2020.
A whole bunch of freshly baked English muffins.
Freezing any extra English muffins is a good idea and they thaw/toast up fairly quickly.

This recipe makes 11 or 12 English muffins, which is a lot. Luckily, these freeze very well. Just place them on a sheet pan in the freezer for a couple of hours, until they are fully hardened and frozen, and then you can store them in a freezer zip-top bag and pull one out when needed. If you need to thaw one out quickly, you can use the microwave or bake it for 10 to 15 minutes at 400°F (205 °C). Or even better, pull them out the night before you need them and leave them in the fridge to fully thaw to be ready for the morning.

Which one are you choosing? I’m picking the small-ish looking one top right.
The cornmeal or semolina works to help you transfer the risen dough, but it also gives English muffins a bit more exterior texture.

Always fork split English muffins

If you want those “nooks and crannies” that Thomas’ brand English Muffin company used to use in advertising, you should fork split an English Muffin. Cutting it with a sharp knife will give you a fully flat surface, but poking a fork around the exterior multiple times will allow you to break apart and split the muffin leaving you with a much rockier texture on the interior that will give you perfect craggly surface for toasting.

Don’t forget this part. I added an animated GIF that hopefully will help cement the process deep in your brain where you keep the important stuff like your mom’s phone number.

Fork splitting English muffins gives you the desirable nooks and crannies that crisp up so well during toasting.
English muffins
Recipe Card
English muffins
14 hours and 55 minutes
English muffins

You want a breakfast bread option that you can also use for eggs benedict or even individual pizzas? This recipe should be easy enough for bakers and cooks alike since it's a hybrid between the two.

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Black

This is the black component of this sandwich because it’s dusted and seared with blackened seasoning on the exterior of the skirt steak. The end result is a steak that isn’t actually colored black, but it will be darkened by the sear on the seasoning and the meat.

Skirt steak is a cut of meat with a pretty even distribution of fat to lean meat. It used to be a cut of meat that wasn’t very well liked because it’s rather tough and thin, but over the past 20 years or so, it has become a very popular choice to grill for tacos or even sandwiches. It’s a very beefy cut of meat that has a ton of beefy flavor.

One of the appeals of skirt steak is that it’s very quick to cook, and it will often be inexpensive. I typically will heat up my pan or grill to a very high heat, and then I cook the steak almost all the way to doneness on the first side, and then just kiss it on the grill for the second side. This means you will get one really good sear with great texture on one side and almost no sear at all on the second side. I think this works a whole lot better than half a sear on two sides.

This skirt steak was already pounded and tenderized by the butchers at the store. It was a bit thinner than I typically buy.
This was cooked indoors on a cast-iron griddle. With the blackening seasoning, that actually might be the best way, so that the meat gets a better sear.
The grain of skirt steak usually goes from across the steak from one long side to the other long side.
If your skirt steak pieces are too long for your grill surface, you can easily cut them in half.
Let the meat rest for about five minutes before slicing.
Figure out which way the grain is going in the steak and slice across it perpendicularly.

Skirt steak can be fairly tough to bite through, so it’s really important to cut perpendicular to the grain of the meat. This will shorten the fibers of the meat, which makes each bite much easier to chew. Find the grain and slice against it.

A spoonful of blackened seasoning will not help the medicine go down, but it’s pretty good on grilled meat!
This recipe makes enough blackened seasoning for at least 10 steaks. You can use it on burgers or pretty much any meat. I also used it for my blackened shrimp Caesar sandwiches.

Here’s my blackened seasoning recipe that I used for this skirt steak. It’s sort of a Cajun-y seasoning with a bit of dried basil and oregano and some cayenne pepper. It brings a bit of spice to the exterior of the steak or burger.

Blackened seasoning
Recipe Card
Blackened seasoning
5 minutes
Blackened seasoning

A seasoning rub that's a bit Cajun-y and quite spicy from the cayenne pepper powder.

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The next component of this sandwich that actually pairs really well with blackened meat is the blue bits.

Blue

The blue part of this sandwich isn’t actually very blue. It’s mostly white with specks of blueish green bits. This is because blue cheese is a cheese that is full of mold. It’s mold that is intentionally added to the cheese during the cheesemaking process. The end product is a creamy cheese that has a bit of pungent aroma, salty flavor, with a bit of sharp tanginess.

Blue cheese works well with beef and shines in this sandwich when it’s drizzled with honey.

You could use blue cheese sauce for this sandwich, but I like the intensity of just the crumbles.
If you look carefully, you can see the darker “blue” spots, which are the bits of mold.
Every once in a while, you end up with a handful of blue cheese crumbles.

Now that we’ve covered the black component, which isn’t actually black, and the blue component that also isn’t really blue, we can mash into the green component of the sandwich that is actually green.

Green

For this sandwich, I kept things simple and mashed up avocado with a tiny bit of salt instead of making guacamole or using avocado slices. I think the mashed avocado works well as a base for the skirt steak, and unlike slices of avocado, when you mash it, it’s not quite as slippery.

Store-bought guacamole would be a good option here, too, if that’s what you prefer. But my goal with the green option in this sandwich was to bring a creamy and fatty texture to balance out any chew in the steak.

Watch out for those fingers!

Hot Honey

So far, everything in this sandwich is savory. The blue cheese is savory, the avocado brings savory flavors, and obviously, the steak will have that sort of savoryiness as well. Just a touch of honey does fantastic things that seem to add a lot of depth to the sandwich.

If you aren’t a fan of spicy things, just use regular honey; it’ll do the same thing without that extra bit of kick. Just drizzle a bit in the sandwich and you’re good to go. No need to measure anything. I just dispense my hot honey based on vibes.

Usually, I have Mike’s hot honey in the cabinet, but I saw Farmer Dan’s brand at the store recently and picked it up. It’s pretty much the same as Mike’s.

Black, blue, and green sandwich photos and recipe

I made this sandwich four or five times last week and thoroughly enjoyed it. The avocado and steak work great, and that bit of honey really goes a long way to balancing out all the savoriness in the other components.

Here are a few photos of the finished sandwich, and the full recipe is waiting for you just below.

A close-up on this tasty sandwich.
Creamy avocado and creamy blue cheese both work great with this skirt steak recipe.
It’s not as “colorful” as the other components, but the honey balances everything out.
Grill your muffins and your steak, and keep the house cool.
Once you have all the ingredients, this sandwich is super easy to assemble and enjoy.
Black, blue, and green muffin sandwich
Recipe
Black, blue, and green muffin sandwich
Black, blue, and green muffin sandwich view printable page for this recipe

This grilled steak sandwich has a bit of spice from the blackened seasoning that pairs well with the creamy blue cheese and a bit of sweetness from the honey. A toasted English muffin brings everything all together into a great sandwich experience.

Ingredients:

Blackened skirt steak
  • 1 tablespoon paprika
  • 1 tablespoon garlic powder
  • 1 tablespoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper powder
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1⁄4 teaspoon MSG (optional)
  • 1 to 2 pound skirt steak
Sandwich assembly
  • English muffin
  • 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 avocado
  • tiny pinch of salt
  • blackened skirt steak (from above)
  • blue cheese crumbles
  • hot honey (or regular honey)

Directions:

Blackened seasoning: combine all ingredients and store in a sealed container.

Apply the seasoning liberally to the exterior of the skirt steak just prior to cooking or grilling.

Skirt steak: preheat a grill, grill pan, or skillet for 5 minutes. While the pan is preheating, season one side of the meat with blackened seasoning. 

When the grill/skillet is hot, add the skirt steak and cook on the first seasoned side for 5 minutes. Season the second side with blackened seasoning and then flip the steak, and cook for an additional 4 minutes. This should have the steak at about an internal temperature of medium. If you need it more well done, flip and cook for an additional 1 to 2 minutes per side. Remove the skirt steak to a cutting board to rest for 5 minutes. 

After five minutes have elapsed, slice the skirt steak into thin slices perpendicular to the grain of the meat. 

Sandwich Assembly: toast an English muffin to crisp up the inside. Spread a layer of avocado and season it lightly with a bit of salt. 

Add a few slices of grilled skirt steak and top that with crumbles of blue cheese. 

Drizzle on a bit of hot honey, close the sandwich, and serve. 

Check back next week

Next week we’re eating corn with the corn kid!