Delicious new breakfast dish at the Roadhouse
by Ari Weinzweig
Although Iâm very bonded to traditional food, there are times over the years where my mind wanders from whatâs been already been done, where I start to imagine ingredients combined in a new ways, all in the interest of creating something super delicious. For me, with my roots in history, itâs almost always taking an ancient dish and altering one element to take into a new construct. Which is exactly what happened earlier this spring when I was out runningâI had an idea, which turned out to be too tasty to pass up. And now, a month or so later, itâs on the breakfast menu at the Roadhouse!
The jumping off point for me this time is an old Italian recipe called Uova in Purgatorio, or, in English, Eggs in Purgatory. Itâs a delicious dish in which you heat up a spicy tomato sauce and then crack whole eggs right into the sauce, and simmer until theyâre lightly cooked. When you eat it, you break the yolk into the sauce and sop it up with toast. Itâs terrific!
The origin of the name? Well, the generally accepted theory is that the eggs represent the vulnerable souls, trying to stay intact, suspended between heaven and hell. Many people believe that the culinary roots of the dish go to the southern Mediterranean, where a comparable dish known as shakshouka has been made for centuries.
On this day I was thinking: what if I did what my friend, New York Times food writer, Melissa Clark, referred to when she wrote about having âwidened my eggs-and-red-sauce circle?â What if, I started to wonder, we replaced the Italian tomato sauce, with an all-American usage of the Roadhouseâs now-classic Red Rage barbecue sauce? Not every idea I come up with is good. But this one turned out terrific. The intuition was insightfulâthe dish was delicious.
A month later, the newly-christened Eggs in Outrage appeared on the breakfast menu at the Roadhouse. (Credit for the name goes to the Roadhouse Kitchen Supervisor Dennis Bennette.) Two eggs, simmered in that great, slightly spicy, slightly sweet barbecue sauce, served next to those delicious griddled breakfast potatoes. We ladle some of the sauce from the sautĂ©e pan over the potatoes, too. Add one of those flaky buttermilk biscuits and, man, what a meal! A southern Italian tradition thatâs taken an American Southern turn. Itâs probably my number one breakfast choice at the Roadhouse right now! Come by and check it out!