Inspiration gives the artist a reason to create, and in turn, that art moves us to create our own. The art of cinema is no exception. Movies have inspired me from when I was a little girl. I recently took inspiration from “Moonstruck” and “Mermaids” (both starring Cher) and brought it into the kitchen for breakfast. Near the end of “Moonstruck”, we see the mother at the stove making a Brooklyn-Italian toad in the hole in a slice of crisp Italian bread. In “Mermaids”, we see young Winona Ryder building a big deli sandwich -the kind a man can sink his teeth into and use both hands to hold- to take along to meet a local stud. I put the two ideas together and created what I am calling, “Moonstruck Mermaid Sandwiches”.
The first order of business was to cut out the hole in my whole wheat bread for the egg and peppers to fit inside. As much as I love Italian long bread, there was only whole wheat in the bread drawer, and since I was playing on two different themes, both needed equal representation. I suppose the hole could be any shape that will fit the slice, but wanting to stay authentic to the films, I chose the star cookie-cutter for my hole, the kind that Cher plunged into Winona’s masterpiece without a word whatsoever. If you don’t have solid metal cookie-cutters, (or just don’t like the shapes you have) I’d suggest using a knife and cutting your own shape. Plastic barely breaks through, and when it does, the piece doesn’t come out cleanly.
Don’t forget to butter or oil your bread so that you get a butter-infused golden crunch on the outside.
In “Moonstruck”, the mother cooked the peppers separately and simply placed them over the finished egg. It’s a clever one-pan method for those who don’t want to dirty a bunch of bowls and need to condense the process of making breakfast into only 3 minutes. Yet, that seemed a bit bland to my imagination. Instead, I scrambled two eggs in a separate bowl, mixed them with some diced red pepper and let it cook inside as a sort of mini-omelet.
Since “Moonstruck” takes place in the Italian part of Brooklyn, I chose the classic simple salt, pepper and garlic trio of seasoning. Since the red peppers would bring boldness to the dish, keeping spices simple would be more tasteful. It’s usually easier to keep the number of spices to a minimum than to risk overpowering your ingredients with seemingly your entire spice rack.
The trickiest part is definitely trying to fit every gooey morsel into such a tiny hole. I used only half of my mixture per slice. The thinner the bread, the less space you have to pour and the more likely, you’ll have a monsoon over your bread. Yet, with a thicker slice and more egg to fill it, the cook-time is harder to estimate. I’ve had eggs not cooked all the way through and by accident, felt semi-cooked mid-egg slime over my lips. Gross! It’s a sort of trial & error. I’m by no means a pro, but it’s roughly a minute maximum on medium heat per side as suggested by Anne Burrell on “Worst Cooks in America”. They cover the four basic egg breakfasts every season; over-easy, sunny side up, scrambled and poached.
Once both sides were done, it was time to get busy. The fridge was totally out of cold-cuts, so sauteed spinach was my best option. Making it a second time, Jeremy and I found that a sharp cheese adds depth to the egg and using a sweet bread compliments the spice of the pepper. We also had some extra egg, so we heated it up in the pan and slid it in with some fresh romaine lettuce instead of spinach. We wished there was a way to maintain the crunchiness of the toast without burning it, but we agreed it beat biting into a crusty rock.
Why not try this out with mushrooms and onions? Maybe you want to add condiments like salsa, mustard. Maybe you prefer sausage, eggplant, or chicken in the middle. You can have the middle be anything you want in a breakfast sandwich. We recommend mushrooms. For all we know, you may like it best with carrot and apple slices. In short, make it your own.
Now, what to do with the cut pieces? What else, but toast them up and make a “Mermaids” finger sandwich? Breakfast like this may have seemed like “too much of a commitment” to Cher’s “Mermaids” character…
but honestly, this combo is totally worth it!