Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:04 pm
Posts: 12732
Location: Lake of the Ozarks (whenever I can)
pizza_Place: Mauries Table
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shakes wrote: C_Howitt_Fealz wrote: Looking for recommendations, but places that serve them all the time.
Augustino's (Carol Stream & West Chicago) makes a good one... never had one, but aren't they literally 2 ingredients + bread? From a Kass article in 2004... For outlanders, just what is the peppernegg sanguich?
"You put pepper on the eggs and eat it with bread?" asked a friendly colleague from Ohio.
No. Please go away.
Ron Kaplan, a contributor to one of the best foodie blogs in the world, the famed lthforum.com, met the peppernegg while in his teens, as a Jewish kid working in a warehouse with Italians.
"It was like a thing," he said of the workers and their sanguiches. "It was new to me. Each one of their families had different recipes, used different traditions. They would bring them for lunch. I'm Jewish and I grew up in a Jewish home and pepper and eggs was not a thing for me. We had a lot of things and this was not one of them. It was just amazing to me — it was delicious and this thing that I had never heard about before."
Yes, it is quite a thing. But what kind of thing?
Peppers and eggs are part of it, the green peppers sauteed perfectly, perhaps with onion, perhaps not, in oil and butter, and the eggs sometimes whipped and creamy, sometimes merely broken, sometimes with cheese, slathered on bread that's toasted, or not.
Many sanguich shops and bakeries make a fine peppernegg, but only made-to-order pepperneggs will do. Using leftover scrambled eggs and peppers stored in a steam table is a sin.
For me, though, nothing quite matches the one you make at home, and when you're done building your sanguich, you can eat the extra eggs and peppers straight from the frying pan with a spoon as you stand there in your kitchen, content.
"I make the best pepper and egg at home," announced Melody Vestuto on Facebook when I asked where to find the best peppernegg. And it wasn't brag, just fact.
Vestuto said her Italian grandma did not believe in exact measurements. Her classic requires a dozen eggs and feeds four to six. And no red peppers, just green, because that's what her grandma said.
"In a frying pan, with plenty of extra-virgin olive oil, saute sliced green pepper strips. You can use one big green pepper or two smaller ones. Saute this all together till peppers are tender when you pierce with the fork. Halfway through, add some salt to the pan. Stir around with your fork. At some point, taste to see if the amount of salt seems OK to you. You should have a good amount of olive oil in that pan so it seems/looks moist & sizzles. Keep the flame on low to moderate, though. Crack your eggs in a bowl & whip them with a fork, cuz once again, grandma says so. Once you whip them about 30 seconds, add about 1/4 cup milk & whip them again another 30 seconds. This makes them fluffy, according to grandma & I believe her. Put enough olive oil in another pan just enough to coat the eggs & add your eggs. Cook on low to moderate flame, stirring/whipping, while they cook, till they look fluffy. Add the peppers & oil mixture from the other pan to your eggs. Mix it all lightly together with your fork. Add more salt if you want to taste.
"Put this yummy concoction on room-temperature Italian bread, either a loaf you cut yourself or pre-cut loaves. You choose. No need to add more oil to the bread if your egg/pepper mixture is moist enough. Now comes the best part ... ENJOY."
Another reader, Jerry Coglianese, chimed in that he loves the way his wife does the classic.
"My wife's are my favorite. Easier to spice them up with the hot giardiniera relish. Lightly scrambled eggs, sauteed green peppers, salt and pepper. Must have fresh Italian bread or roll. Then the hot giardiniera if you like it spicy. I like the relish type. It doesn't fall out of the sandwich."
Me? I like the peppers roasted first, over flame, then put into a brown paper bag to steam, then peeled, then sauteed, and I throw the eggs in the same pan after the peppers are done, and put it all on rolls from an Italian bakery, but I don't want to get too fancy.
John Robert Regotti is a fan of Roma's Italian Beef & Sausage on Cicero, but he also makes his at home, peppers sauteed in olive oil and butter, onion powder with the eggs, sea salt, ground black peppercorns.
"Served on a slightly toasted roll … voila! Homemade pepper and egg."
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