Spanglish, the movie your aunt refers to as a "must-watch!", is home to a Thomas Keller-inspired creation known around the internet as "The World's Greatest Sandwich". Can such familiar ingredients earn such a prestigious moniker? Let's find out, and let's take it one step further: by baking our own rustic country loaf to act as the "bread" for our creation.

 

Ingredients

For bread:

  • 1 cup room temperature water
  • ½ tsp instant yeast
  • 5 ounces whole wheat flour (approximately 1 ¼ cup)
  • 5 ounces bread flour (approximately 1 ¼ cup)
  • 19 ¼ ounces bread flour (approximately 4 ¾ cup)
  • 1 ⅓ cup room temperature water
  • 2 ½ ounces rye flour (approximately ⅔ cup)
  • 2 Tbsp honey

 

For sandwich:

  • 2 slices Monterey Jack cheese
  • A heaping spoonful of mayo
  • 4 slices of bacon
  • 4 slices of tomato
  • 1 fried egg, sunny side up
  • 3 leaves of butter leaf lettuce

Method

  1. Wake up super early because that’s the first rule of bread baking. In a bowl, add yeast to room temperature water and combine. Allow yeast to dissolve. Add 5 ounces of bread flour and whole wheat flour. Combine until a sloppy dough forms.
  2. Cover the dough and allow to sit at room temperature for 5-16 hours. You can get some sleep in the meantime.
  3. Add the rest of the bread flour, additional room temperature water, rye flour, and honey to the dough. Mix lightly by hand. Then, using a stand mixer with a kneading hook, allow dough to be kneaded for 15 minutes on a low speed.
  4. Lightly oil a bowl. Dump the kneaded dough into the bowl, pat it down with your fingers, and cover. Allow dough to rise for 2 hours or until it has tripled in size.
  5. Heavily flour your workspace. Dump the dough out onto the workspace. Pull the edges into the center of the dough to create a smooth top for your bread.
  6. Line a colander with cheesecloth and dust cloth lightly with flour. Place dough smooth side down. Cover with aluminum foil and let rest for 45 minutes or until it has almost doubled in size.
  7. Preheat oven to 450°F and place a pizza stone into oven.
  8. Lightly flour a parchment-lined pizza peel. Place pizza peel on top of the colander and invert so the dough is now lying on top of the parchment paper on the pizza peel.
  9. Get your razor blade from the Goodfellas pasta episode and score the bread. Spritz the dough with water.
  10. Using the pizza peel, transfer the dough to the pizza stone in the preheated oven. Allow to bake for 35-45 minutes or until browned. Tap the outside of the loaf cause that seems like something you’re supposed to do with bread. Allow the loaf to cool for at least 2 hours.

 

For sandwich:

  1. Preheat oven to 400°.
  2. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place a wire rack on top. Lay bacon slices on wire rack. Place baking sheet with bacon into preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until crispy.
  3. Hack off 2 slices of bread and toast. Place monterey jack cheese on one slice and a healthy smear of mayo on the other.
  4. Top the mayo slice with 4 slices of tomatoes. Salt the tomatoes. Top the tomatoes with the bacon. Then, place the fried egg on top. Place some butter leaf lettuce on top of the egg. Place the cheese slice down.
  5. Slice in half and take at least 20 minutes to stop and stare at that cross section in wonderment. Enjoy with a tall cold beer.