sweet & savoury egg sandwich

with raw honey and chilli

A massive steel centrifuge spins the honeycomb, expelling honey into tubes that feed into a collecting basin. Kirk opens the lid to the extractor and plucks out a gob of fresh honeycomb and hands it over to me; the wax is delicate and floral, the honey life-affirming. Kirk’s livelihood as a beekeeper is not built around selling honey, instead making his living from breeding and selling queen bees. But his honey is exceptional, and once tasted will set you on a quest to find anything comparable instead of resorting to mass-produced supermarket honey. 

As Kirk was my parents’ old college pal, we always had some of his honey on hand, stored in a gallon-sized white tub in a low, deep cupboard alongside granola and breakfast cereal. I took this wealth of artisanal Vermont honey for granted, assuming all honey was thick, golden, opaque and crystallised. My favourite way to prepare toast as a child was to pop a slice of Grand Central Bakery’s Campagnolo in the toaster oven, load it up with butter, smear a dollop of Kirk’s honey over the top and then shower it with cinnamon. What can I say? I was into food from an early age.

When I moved to Vermont, I got to put a name to the honey; Kirk lived up the road from Middlebury College, and he took me under his wing when I arrived. A couple of times a month I would go to his house for dinner, and I occasionally joined him for drives around Addison country to visit his apiaries. Over the years I spent with Kirk, I learned a lot about food systems, sustainable agriculture, life in general; and of course a good bit about bees and honey as well. 

I still keep a small store of Kirk’s honey on hand in my kitchen in London. Occasionally I’ll drizzle a bit over my daughters’ toast alongside a shower of cinnamon. I reach for it when they need something to soothe a nasty cough that’s keeping them awake at night. My favourite application by far, however, is in this sweet and savoury egg sandwich.

I started making a version of this sandwich 15+ years ago when I was living in Vermont and had easy access to Kirk’s bees’ life-changing honey. The sweet honey and sharp cheddar play perfectly against a lacy olive-oil fried egg. A hit of chilli seals the sweet, fatty, cheesy deal; any sceptics of combining honey, spice and cheese should familiarise themselves with Mike’s Hot Honey drizzled over pizza, which my family fell in love with back in the 2000s. Use any multigrain crusty boule for this; in London, my go-to for a multigrain loaf is Gail’s Seeded Sourdough. There’s nothing groundbreaking or complicated about this but it’s exactly what you want for lunch on a cold winter day, whether you’re in rural Vermont or central London.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 egg

• 2 slices multigrain boule or sourdough (my favourite is the Gail’s Seeded Sourdough, which is available via Ocado)

• ½ tablespoon mayonnaise

• 1 teaspoon chilli flakes

• 1 teaspoon honey (use the best-quality raw honey you can find)

• 30 grams (~¼ cup) vintage (e.g. very sharp) cheddar, grated or thinly sliced

• handful rocket or mixed salad leaves

Method

1. Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat.

2. Once oil is hot, add egg to pan. Cook until white has set and started to become crispy and brown at the edges, but yolk remains runny (or longer if you prefer a set yolk). 

3. While the egg is cooking, place bread in a toaster or, if you don’t have a toaster, under the grill/broiler for 3-4 minutes until lightly crisped at the edges.

4. Spread ½ tablespoon mayo across one slice of bread. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon chilli flakes over mayonnaise. Set aside. 

5. Spread 1 teaspoon honey on second slice of bread. Layer cheese over honey. Place the fried egg on top of the cheese (do this while the egg is still hot - you want the egg to melt the cheese a bit). 

6. Place a handful of rocket over egg, close sandwich with mayo/chilli slice of bread (condiment side facing inward). Slice in half and serve immediately.