Chopped sausage sandwich is a breakfast take on the New York chopped cheese. Sausage and onions get chopped together on the griddle until caramelised, two cheeses go in, and scrambled eggs cook in the fat left behind. Makes four, takes 35 minutes.
The recipe comes from Idiot Sandwich, Gordon Ramsay’s sandwich cookbook. Chopped cheese is a bodega dish from Spanish Harlem, usually credited to Hajji’s Deli in the 1990s. Beef and onions get chopped on the flat top until the cheese melts through them.
The chopping is the technique. You break the sausage down with the edge of a spatula as it cooks. Every new surface you expose caramelises, instead of the meat sitting there in lumps.
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Chopped Sausage Sandwich
Course: BreakfastCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy4
sandwiches15
minutes20
minutes1000
kcal35 min
A breakfast version of the Harlem chopped cheese, from Gordon Ramsay’s Idiot Sandwich. Sausage and onion chopped together on the griddle with American and provolone melted through, topped with eggs scrambled in the rendered fat.
Ingredients
- For the chopped sausage:
2 tbsp neutral oil
1 cup diced white onion
450g pork breakfast sausage meat (1 lb)
4 slices American cheese
4 slices provolone
- For the eggs:
8 large eggs
- To assemble:
2 Italian sesame sub rolls, hinged and toasted
4 tbsp mayonnaise
Spicy ketchup
Sea salt and ground black pepper
Directions
- Soften the onions: Put the oil and diced onion in a medium frying pan or on a griddle over a medium heat. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes, until tender and just starting to caramelise.
- Caramelise the sausage: Push the onions to one side of the pan and leave them cooking there. Put the sausage meat down on the empty side and let it sit for about 5 minutes, until a crust forms on the edges.
- Chop it together: Break the sausage into small pieces with the edge of your spatula. Mix the onions back through it and keep chopping and turning as it carries on caramelising.
- Melt in the cheese: Once the sausage is cooked through and well browned, lay the American and provolone slices over the top. Chop them into the meat a few times until combined, then season. Lift the mixture out and keep the rendered fat in the pan. Turn the heat to low.
- Scramble the eggs: Whisk the eggs until the yolks and whites are completely combined, then pour them into the pan with the sausage fat. Stir now and then with a rubber spatula for 2 to 5 minutes, keeping the curds in large pieces. Season.
- Build: Spread spicy ketchup on the bottom half of each roll. Pile on the chopped sausage, then the eggs. Spread mayonnaise on the top half and close.
Notes
- Two rolls make four sandwiches, so each one gets cut in half after filling. The spicy ketchup is a separate recipe in the book, so use any hot-sauce-spiked ketchup if you do not have it. Calories are worked out from the ingredients.
FAQs
What is a chopped cheese?
A chopped cheese is a New York bodega sandwich of ground beef and onions chopped together on a flat-top griddle with cheese melted through. It comes from Spanish Harlem and is usually credited to Hajji’s Deli in the 1990s, though the origin is argued over.
This version swaps the beef for breakfast sausage and adds scrambled eggs. Same technique, moved to the morning.
Why chop the meat as it cooks?
Chopping exposes new surfaces to the hot pan, so more of the sausage browns instead of just the outside of a lump. You do it with the edge of a spatula, in the pan, as it cooks.
That is the whole difference between this and a sausage patty. Keep turning and chopping as it goes, so the caramelised bits get folded back through rather than left on the base.
Why two kinds of cheese?
American cheese melts smoothly and coats everything, while provolone brings the flavour that American on its own lacks. Four slices of each go on together.
They get chopped into the meat rather than laid on top, so the cheese runs through the whole mixture. The meatball sub does the reverse, with torn mozzarella melted under a hot grill.
Why cook the eggs in the sausage fat?
The rendered fat is left in the pan on purpose and the eggs go straight into it. It seasons them and saves adding butter or oil on top of what is already there.
Turn the heat to low first, since that fat is hot from browning the sausage. Then stir occasionally rather than constantly, the opposite of the scrambled eggs in Make It Easy, where the pan starts cold and never stops moving.
Why keep the scrambled eggs in big pieces?
Large curds hold their shape in a sandwich, where fine ones would collapse into the sausage and disappear. Stir only now and then with a rubber spatula, over 2 to 5 minutes.
Whisk the eggs properly first, though. The book asks for whites and yolks fully combined before they go anywhere near the pan.
What bread should you use?
Two Italian sesame sub rolls, hinged rather than cut all the way through, and toasted. Hinged means the sandwich holds together with this much loose filling inside.
Each roll makes two sandwiches, so they get cut after filling. Any soft sub roll works, but it needs to be sturdy enough to take chopped meat and eggs without splitting.
