When McDonalds first started serving breakfast, I was amazed at the Egg McMuffin. It was just exploding with flavor. The English Muffin was hot, lightly browned, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, the Canadian Bacon tasted like Canadian Bacon , the Egg tasted like Egg and even the cheese tasted like cheese.
However after a while, as happens with all factory food, it started to lose something. Then it lost pretty much everything. The egg didn’t taste very “eggy” anymore and the English Muffin started showing up just warm and raw and the flavors just weren’t there. My breakfast joy had turned into a flavorless tepid sandwich not worth the time it takes to get through the drive-through.
A few weeks ago, I thought to myself, “Self. you can do better than this limp flavorless waste of time!” and sure enough, I could!
Give this a try, it will bring back the original joy of breakfast, and then some!
Note that successfully creating a perfect Egg McMuffin is about half quality ingredients and about half timing, so be sure to prep all your ingredients before you start cooking
Equipment:
- Ring molds (sometimes called “egg rings”). Can be purchased 2 for $4 at Bed Bath and Beyond, and probably a lot of other places.
- Small Teflon frying pan and lid
| Ingredients: | ||
| 1 | Large | Egg |
| 2 | Strips | Real Bacon – not “low fat” or “low salt” or “low anything else” |
| 1 | Thomas’s English Muffin | |
| Smoked Gouda Cheese (just enough to cover the egg) | ||
| Fresh Ground Black Pepper & Kosher Salt | ||
| Real, Unsalted Butter (not Margarine!) | ||
Process:
- Split the muffin open by poking a fork from the edge to the center, moving around the entire perimeter, until it splits in half, put muffin in toaster and start toast cycle
- If possible, roast bacon in a 450° oven, on a wire rack placed over a baking sheet, for about 10 minutes. Otherwise, microwave on a few sheets of paper towel for 2 minutes. For some reason, it tastes better when done in the oven.
- Put pan on medium heat. Slice a 1/4″ chunk off a stick of butter (not margarine!), cut it in half and add one half to the pan. Put Egg Ring in pan.
- When toast cycle finishes, crack egg and drop into ring mold and restart toaster
- When Egg is mostly solid, carefully remove ring mold, flip egg, put cheese on top, cover pan and wait until cheese melts (30 seconds to a minute).
- Remove both muffin halves from toaster, immediately butter, sprinkle lightly with salt, place egg on half the muffin, break bacon in half and put on top, sprinkle with a little pepper and cover with the muffin top.
I know this sounds like an insane amount of detail, but once you’ve had this on a Sunday morning with some fresh coffee and a newspaper, you’ll never be able to do the drive-through again.
Enjoy!