World’s Greatest Sandwich?

What is this sandwich?

The sandwich he creates is basically a bacon, lettuce, and tomato, or BLT, with the addition of melty cheese and a fried egg. In the movie, the sandwich is cut in half, revealing the runny yolk for a drool-worthy money shot.

Adam Sandler is not a chef in real life, so the producers of the movie hired a person named Thomas Keller to consult and prepare the actor to play the role of a professional cook and restaurateur. If you’ve never heard of him, Keller is a famous chef best known for his Napa Valley, California restaurant, The French Laundry. Keller owns multiple other restaurants and bakeries, and he has written and published many award-winning cookbooks. He also served as a culinary consultant—and voiced Food Snob #1—for the wonderful food-focused Pixar animated movie Ratatouille.

Behind the scenes on Spanglish, Keller created what he felt was a great late-night sandwich that a chef might make at home, after work, paired with a beer. We know this because it was shared in a scene ripped from the DVD extras (video above), and in that video, Keller is shown giving sandwich tips to Sandler about how to flip an egg, which way to arrange the bacon slices, and when to salt the tomato.

Here is a list of the ingredients that I pulled together, which are about as close to what is listed as the recipe in the DVD extras. I adjusted the number of components in order to fit the size of the bread slice that I baked. You may want to adjust for your bread as well, depending on what you end up buying or making.

• 2 slices of rustic whole-grain loaf
• 2 to 3 tablespoons mayo
• Monterey Jack cheese, melted
• 2 to 3 pieces of butter lettuce
• 1 over-easy or sunny-side-up egg
• 3 bacon slices
• 2 to 3 tomato slices, salted

Throughout this sandwich blog post, I want to write about each sandwich component and combine Thomas Keller’s specific tips with any additional tips I may have picked up along the way. Read along or just skip to see the photos and full recipe.

Is this a breakfast sandwich?
No, I do not think so. In the DVD extras, it’s portrayed as a late-night sandwich, but the addition of egg, in my opinion, is offset by the inclusion of lettuce.
Lettuce should not be in a breakfast sandwich.

Now that we know what sandwich we’re working with here, let’s get that bread.

Whole-grain rustic loaf

The bread in this sandwich is important, and it needs to be hearty enough to stand up to some melty cheese and moisture from the tomato slices and runny egg. A slice of super soft white bread would probably work ok, but the sandwich will be better if the bread is a bit heartier.

Ok, well here’s the thing. If you follow this recipe, get very good bread. I mean, no kidding, it’s the best sandwich ever. That’s it, it’s the World’s Greatest Sandwich.

Director James L. Brooks – narrator of the “World’s Greatest Sandwich” extra segment on the Spanglish DVD

This is a new bread recipe that I have never shared before, but like many of my bread recipes, this one is actually just an adjustment to another loaf recipe that I’ve made many times. Basically, I have a white country loaf recipe, and I replaced half of the white bread flour with whole wheat flour to create slices that are a bit heartier with the taste of a more whole-grain flavor.

This is a pretty easy bread loaf to make. The dough requires a session or two of stretch and folds to help build some gluten and structure, but it ends up with a nice slice that is soft and holds up well to some toasting.

Here’s my rustic wheat bread recipe that I can guarantee will work great when covered with melty cheese and stand up to the tomato/mayo juices in this sandwich. If you don’t want to make your own bread, just make sure to buy quality bread that could elevate the sandwich.

Rustic whole grain sandwich loaf

Recipe

4 hours and 10 minutes

Rustic whole grain sandwich loaf

This half whole wheat, half white flour loaf creates great, soft, but still hearty slices for your next sandwich or simply a flavorful buttered slice of toast.

Get Recipe

Bacon

I have written about oven-baked bacon a whole bunch of times recently, but it’s the most convenient way to bake a bunch of bacon at once while still keeping things neat and having a small amount of cleanup throughout the process. But you can make your bacon for this sandwich however you want.

I added my oven-baked process into the full recipe, but I also make it very clear at the top of the recipe that you can choose your own bacon adventure as long as it’s cooked, crunchy, and savory.

Thomas Keller spends a bit of time in the DVD extras explaining to Adam Sandler that it’s important to shingle the bacon strips in the sandwich so the fat ends of each alternating strip are on opposite sides. I don’t think this tip is super important, but it does make sense, and it ensures that the bacon is distributed properly in the sandwich.

Oven-baked bacon

Recipe

30 minutes

Oven-baked bacon

Want a super easy way to make a lot of bacon for sandwiches with very little effort or cleanup?

Get Recipe

Butter lettuce

I considered leaving this section blank because no one wants to read about lettuce. It is definitely the weakest ingredient in this sandwich, in my opinion. A crunchy piece of lettuce does contribute texture, but the flavor is overwhelmed by everything else involved here.

Butter lettuce is what is suggested in the DVD extra scene recipe, but I couldn’t find butter lettuce when I was sourcing ingredients. I bought what was labeled as Gem Lettuce, which is a hybrid lettuce created by combining romaine and butter lettuce.

Tomato slices

Some people say that a BLT is not a bacon sandwich; it’s primarily a tomato sandwich. I do not wholeheartedly agree with that. I think the two pair together equally, but the sandwich is obviously elevated if the tomato is extra flavorful. Bacon is usually a very consistent ingredient, but tomato slices are not.

It was January when I bought these tomatoes. That’s probably the absolute worst month to be buying them, so I did the best I could and bought some of the redder-looking tomato options. Turns out they were ok, not great, but this sandwich has enough other components that a couple of below-average tomato slices can not upset the ship.

Every chef worth his salt has a salt box that he carries with him.

Thomas Keller – from the “World’s Greatest Sandwich” extra segment on the Spanglish DVD

I think my biggest tip, other than making sure to directly season the tomato, is to make sure that the tomato slices are touching the spread of mayonnaise. The salt starts to force liquid or juice out of the tomato slices, which directly mixes with the mayo to create what almost becomes a savory sandwich sauce. The two components of the sandwich will still combine in each bite, but to me, it seems to work better when they are touching.

Monterey Jack cheese slices

For my sandwiches, I used three half slices of Monterey Jack cheese, but your bread might need four half slices. I like the half pieces because you can adjust to fit the size of the bread slice.

Spread fat in the form of butter, mayonnaise, or bacon grease to one side of each slice of bread and toast them fat side down in a non-stick skillet over medium-low heat with a lid on top that will help melt the cheese.

Mayonnaise

I did not make my own mayo for this sandwich, but it would be a good addition. I have shared my favorite, 2-minute mayonnaise recipe below if you want to give it a shot. This particular sandwich has just the right type of ingredients to ensure that the flavor of the mayo will stand out.

Mayo is used two different times in my recipe because I spread it on the bread slices before toasting and after toasting. The first spread is used to help toast each slice in the pan (I also suggest you could use butter or reserved bacon grease for this), and then the second smear of mayo is spread inside the sandwich to help the tomato create extra moisture inside the experience.

In the Thomas Keller Spanglish DVD extra, I’m pretty sure they’re using Best Foods mayonnaise (which is the same thing as Hellmann’s mayonnaise), but I used my preferred Duke’s mayo. I know from experience that if you share BLT content on the internet, someone is going to get into your replies and say, “I hope you used Duke’s mayo.” So I did.

But here’s my homemade mayo recipe if you want to put a bit more effort into this sandwich.

Fried egg

The DVD extra about this sandwich included on the Spanglish DVD shows Thomas Keller demonstrating to Adam Sandler how he can flip a fried egg directly in the pan without breaking the whole yolk. Keller then places that over-easy egg on the sandwich.

Ohhh that was hot. Did you see the egg flip?

Adam Sandler – from the “World’s Greatest Sandwich” extra segment on the Spanglish DVD

I tried the egg flip that Thomas Keller pulls off effortlessly in the DVD extra, and for me, it was a waste of an egg. I got the flip to work just fine, but the force burst the egg yolk, and I ate my error and tried again (you can see an animated GIF of this happening below).

If you watch the movie segment, you’ll notice that a sunny-side-up egg is placed on the sandwich instead of the flipped, over-easy egg. I’m assuming this is because Adam Sandler didn’t want to try the flip for the movie, and it was just simpler to use an unflipped egg to get the drippy yolk money shot.

I made this sandwich with both an over-easy egg and a sunny-side-up egg, and they both work the same. So my tip here is to do whatever you like as long as the yolk is still a bit runny. If you don’t enjoy a runny yolk, this addition to the sandwich might not be something you’ll want to do.

But the runny yolk that will eventually break and leak out of the sandwich creates another sort of sauce on the plate that you should run the edges of the sandwich through before taking a bite.

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While I was taking a break from writing all of this about eggs, I got a randomly promoted video into my Instagram feed about the importance of egg yolk positioning in an over-easy egg. It’s created by a person named Michael Tchao, and you should watch it if you’re having trouble flipping your over-easy eggs.

My tip: just cook a sunny-side-up egg and don’t worry about flipping. If you really need your yolk more set, you could cook the egg with a lid on the pan, which will steam the yolk.

Is this the World’s Greatest Sandwich?

Here are some photos of Adam Sandler’s late-night BLT sandwich that I made and photographed during this past week. The full recipe with my tips, combined with the already great Thomas Keller tips, is just below the photos.

Is this the World’s Greatest Sandwich? That’s a tough question for me to answer. I can say that this is a fairly easy sandwich to make, which means the return on your investment is very high. If you time things just right so that your tomatoes are at the peak of flavor, you really might have a World’s Best on your hands.

In my opinion, I would say that this isn’t the world’s best sandwich. I would rank a really well-made fried chicken sandwich, a Cuban sandwich, or even something like a club sub higher than this one. But I do think this sandwich has fantastic textures and flavors, and it seems like a sandwich that almost anyone can make. As I said above, the return on investment is high, and if you get really good bread and a good tomato, it could be the best sandwich you’ll have all year.

But you’ll never know unless you make the sandwich in your own kitchen and find out for yourself. Tag me if you do.

Adam Sandler's late night BLT (from Spanglish)

Recipe

Adam Sandler's late night BLT (from Spanglish)

Is this BLT with melty cheese and a fried egg from the movie Spanglish the World's Greatest Sandwich? I think you'll just have to make one and find out.

bacon cheese egg lettuce tomato

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by Jonathan Surratt

Ingredients:

Oven baked bacon

• 1 package bacon

Sandwich assembly

• 2 slices of sourdough or hearty country-style bread
• 2 teaspoons butter, mayonnaise, or bacon grease
• 1 to 2 slices of Monterey Jack cheese
• 1 to 3 teaspoons mayonnaise
• 2 to 3 slices of ripe tomato
• salt and ground black pepper
• 2 to 4 slices of cooked bacon (from above)
• 2 to 3 pieces of butter lettuce (or any sort of lettuce)

Fried egg

• 1 tablespoon butter or bacon grease
• 1 whole large egg
• salt and ground black pepper

Direct Link to Recipe

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Directions:

You can skip the bacon part if you prefer to cook bacon another way. The oven gives you an option to cook a whole package at once, but you may need 2 sheet pans.

Oven-baked bacon: line a sheet pan with aluminum foil. I typically overlap two or three pieces of foil. You probably can't get a whole package of bacon on one pan, so you might need an addition oven safe pan if you want to cook the whole package. 

Remove the bacon from the package and lay as many slices as you can on the foil-lined baking sheet. You can place your bacon very close together, but try not to overlap the pieces. If you can't get the whole package on there, put the remainder back in the fridge for later. 

Do not preheat your oven. When you have as much bacon as you can fit on your sheet pan, place it in a cold oven and set the oven to 400°F (204°C). 

Set a timer for 20 minutes and start checking the bacon. Depending on the type of bacon and thickness, it could take another 5 or more minutes. 

I start checking at 20 minutes, and if it's not fully done, I will flip the bacon and put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes or so, checking the doneness every so often. Once the bacon is done to your liking, remove the slices to a paper towel-lined plate and store in the fridge if you're not using it immediately. 

Once you've removed the bacon, you can carefully pour off the bacon grease into a jar or heat-proof container before it cools and firms up. You can use the bacon grease in the bread toasting or egg cooking process if you want. 

Pre-sandwich assembly: to get the sandwich build started, we need to toast the bread slices and get the cheese melty. I accomplish this in a medium-sized non-stick pan that you would typically use to cook an egg. Place the pan over medium-low heat. Spread a bit of fat in the form of butter, mayonnaise, or bacon grease on the exterior of one side of both pieces of bread. Add the pieces to the pan, fat side down, and then add the slices of cheese to one slice of the bread. 

Place a lid over the pan to help the cheese melt. If you do not have a lid, you can use a sheet pan and lay it on top of the pan. We're just trying to trap some heat and steam in the pan to melt the cheese. Once the cheese is melted (should take 4 minutes or so) remove both slices of bread to a cooling rack while you build the sandwich and cook the egg. 

Spread mayonnaise on the slice of bread without cheese. Top the mayo with the slices of tomato and then season the tomato slices with a pinch of salt and pepper. 

Top the tomato slices with your bacon, making sure that the slices are spread out and cover the full amount of the bread. Lay the lettuce pieces on top of the bacon and get ready to cook your egg.

Fried egg: wipe out the pan from toasting the bread and add it back to medium or medium-low heat. Add a tablespoon of butter or bacon grease to the pan and allow it to warm up while you carefully crack an egg into a bowl, doing your best not to break the yolk. You crack it into a bowl first so that you can make sure there's no shell in the hot pan.

When the butter or fat is bubbling and hot, carefully pour the egg into the pan, again taking care that you do not break the yolk. Season the egg with a pinch of salt and ground black pepper. 

Cook the egg until the white part around the yolk is starting to solidify and isn't super runny. At this point, you can carefully flip the egg in the pan to make an over-easy egg, or you can just use a sunny-side-up egg in the sandwich. Basically, flip if you prefer your egg just a little more cooked, but be very careful not to break the yolk. 

Once the egg is cooked to your liking, remove it from the pan and carefully lay it on top of the lettuce. Carefully close the sandwich by placing the slice of bread with melted cheese on top of the egg. 

Slice the sandwich with a sharp knife over the part where the egg yolk should be and serve. Dip the sandwich in the spilled egg yolk for a bit of sauce on each bite. 

Check back next week

Next week, we’re putting pulled pork, pineapple, pepperoni, and pepperoncinis into a sandwich. Come back and figure out how many Ps can fit.