FREE IMPROV SANDWICH

 St John Restaurant put up this image on Instagram:

 

The caption was, ‘”Creating a sandwich is like jazz,” says Fergus (Henderson). “You must find your unique sounds.”  Fergus always orders the Egg Mayonnaise sandwich from the chalkboard bar menu, and requests the addition of brown shrimp or anchovy.  The perks of being the boss.’

 

I’m not sure that creating a sandwich is really very much like jazz but I would never argue with Fergus Henderson.

 

 

And then Fuchsia Dunlop put up this image on Instagram: 

 

with the caption, ‘Scotch woodcock (a scrambled egg and anchovy dish, no bird involved) and crab on toast …” A Scotch woodcock is a version of the Welsh rarebit – the anchovies can be on top of the egg (as in the pic) or below the egg as in Gentleman’s Relish.  

Both would be OK by me.

 

I decided the kitchen gods wanted me to make an egg mayonnaise sandwich with anchovies.

 

The truth is I never willingly make an egg mayonnaise sandwich without anchovies so I boiled my eggs readied my mayo and anchovies and in due course began assemblage.  

But the fact also is that I never willingly make an egg mayonnaise sandwich without smoked paprika - and I suddenly realized I’d run out.  I’m not prepared to drive to the supermarket just for a jar of smoked paprika, so I improvised.

 Here is my egg mayonnaise sandwich with anchovies and ... turmeric. 

 

It tasted pretty good. To be honest I think that was because of the egg and the mayonnaise and the anchovies rather than the turmeric.  Does turmeric really have much taste at all? I don’t think so, but I stand to be corrected.  But it looked reasonably jazzy.

Do you want to see a picture of a young Rachel Riley (of Countdown fame) dressed as an egg salad sandwich?  Well, of course you do.

 

 

DECONSTRUCTING FERGUS

I always say that my favourite London restaurant is Fergus Henderson’s St John, and while this is completely true, it’s depressing how rarely I go there.  Of course nobody goes anywhere at the moment so I’ve been consoling myself by following St John’s Instagram page and was especially taken with this image of what I take to be ‘deconstructed’ egg mayonnaise.

It’s an image that confirms many of my prejudices; the main one being that you really do need an anchovy or two to make egg mayonnaise go with a swing.  I generally make it with a as sandwich but I suppose Fergus would thinking than serving up a sandwich at St John would seem a bit crude.

Here’s one I made earlier, some years earlier, 

and here’s one I made just today: