How to Make Salmon Breakfast Bruschetta

We’re going to start with a breakfast bruschetta. I call it smoked salmon breakfast
bruschetta. I love this dish. It's really wonderful. We’ve kind of get on an Asian. Actually
I'm going to take you on a culinary travel journey with all these wonderful flavors. We’re
actually going to head off to the Mediterranean with this particular dish.

What I'm going to start with is some wonderful bread. This is an artisan loaf. It's a four-
seed artisan loaf but you can also get any type of bread that really appeals to you. There
are so many types of breads out there. Make sure that you get something that’s got a
chewy texture but the crust can be very crunchy. This one is just perfect. It's also you’ll
see here it’s got a large space because this is going to be the base of our bread orb our
dish. It's the part—that’s the bruschetta. You want to be able to put your eggs on that.

Let me tell you what’s in the dish first though, we’ve got to start off with the toast and
then we’re going to do some scrambled eggs. We’re going to slather the toast with
mascarpone and the eggs will be seasoned with herbs of Provence which is what that
wonderful Mediterranean flavor I was telling you about. Top this in luscious salmon lox.
Then I have a special salsa verde with a balsamic reduction. Does that sound too much?
Honest, it's very easy. You're going to love it. So let’s get started.

I've already preheated my broiler. So that’s nice. I've also got my sauté pan heated. So
we’re going to cut a nice slice off here and we’ll just use this, we know that this is not
going to be utilized so, I think that’s a good sized slice. We’ll do another one here. The
great tool is a serrated bread knife if you have one especially for these types of breads.
You can see what a clean cut it gives me.

Look how beautiful that bread. We’re going to start with three slices. I've got this
wonderful rack here which will allow the air to actually go through and it won’t create a
condensation on the backside. I'm going to place this now in the broiler. I’ll keep the door
open, I’ll remember about the heat. I'm going to place the butter in the pan because my
pan is already been preheated. I've put it on low because eggs don’t like a lot of high
heat. They need to be cuddled. So we’re going to put the butter in. I'm going to be
generous with this because I've got about eight eggs.

Another great tool if you're not familiar with this is it is actually a heat temper spatula.
It's wonderful. You can use it at any types of dishes on any saute pans especially for eggs.
The nice thing is that it can go up to a temperature I think of exceeding 500 degrees. It's
one of my favorite tools. The butter is softening. It looks really good. It's starting to
bubble a bit. I'm going to check my toast right now. Oh yes, they’re beautiful. They’re
being nice and browned and I’ll just flip them. Remember, you have to watch this. This
can go very quickly.

Remind me to check this out at about a minute. I think my toast is ready. Perfectly golden
brown, place it right here on the stove. I'm going to turn my stove off. My butter has
melted nicely. We’re going to crack some eggs.

I've eight large eggs. I don’t know if you’ve ever learn how to crack an egg with one
hand but I'm going to show you right now. It's really quite fun and it's a great way to
practice especially if you're doing brunch for a crowd. What you're going to do is take an
egg and you're going to basically crack it here, I call it on the sweet spot. You're going to
position your bottom two fingers right below that crack line. And you would give it a
nice good whack and then separate just like that. Believe me it's very rare when you get
an actual shell in the mixture because you’ve actually encompassed the whole egg. So I'm
going to try it again. I’ll show you again. Again, right there and then spread with that
second finger.

If you're doing this for a group, they’ll be really amazed and they’ll want to learn. So it's
really kind of fun to do. You’ll get people that will go crazy and you’ll lose some of the
eggs on the counter but it's actually quite fun, very harmless fun. It's all about playing
with your food.

Okay, now for my scrambled eggs, I don’t put anything in it. I really just want the eggs to
come out and we’ve got a lot of luscious ingredients already. We have the mascarpone
and we also have the butter. So, I don’t think it requires any additional fat. So I'm going
to give it a nice quick whisk and I like to see parts of the yolk as well as the whites. I
don’t like it to be too homogenized. I think it looses the texture and also the flavor of the
eggs. Remember I told you about the Mediterranean kind of flavor? We’ve got these
fabulous herbs of Provence. Herbs of Provence is one of my moist favorite kind of quick
off-the-shelf side of ingredient. I put it in salad dressings, for eggs, seasoning for meat,
poultry, anything you can think of and it's wonderful. It's actually a combination. Some
have lavender in it, some don’t but most have thyme. We have basil. There is also
rosemary. It's just a wonderful herb.

So I'm going to dust this on top of the eggs and whisk that in. Okay, we’re going to walk
over and I'm going to turn my pan back on. My butter has already been melted and whisk
this just a little bit more. Now I'm going to pour my eggs with that wonderful herbs of
Provence mixture right into my pan. One of the things I've learned with a home cook is
that people actually overcook their eggs. They actually are very dry. For me personally, I
like a little bit of a wet or moist egg. That’s the way I'm going to cook it today and it
think it actually provides a lovely glistening effect and a nice contrast to the salmon.

So the way you cook eggs so that they’re soft is you have to be patient. Patience is mans
greatest virtue. I've learned this about eggs and a lot of other things too. So, we’re going
to let it set a little bit around the side and then once it kind of sets, then I'm going to
actually pull or draw the egg mixture into the center. That will allow the eggs, the wet
eggs actually to flow underneath and then they will proceed to cook. What that will create
is like a lovely billowy kind of curdy texture and that’s what I'm looking for. So these
look really nice.

Every stove is different. You will know your stove. So I'm going to pull and we’re going
to pull and just pull. Look at that lovely curd right there in the center. Be patient. You
will be well rewarded, I promise. This is a great time to add your salt or pepper to your
mix. Remember you want to kind of go a little bit light on the salt specifically because
you also have a very salty product which is the salmon. So we’re just going to put a little
bit of this wonderful garnishing salt flor de sel. I love this.

Now we’re going to pull, look at those beautiful—that’s what I'm looking for, nice. I'm
going to turn down my heat a little bit because I can hear my eggs are kind of getting a
little cranky. We don’t want that. Here is one way to making an omelet, except with an
omelet you just would actually let it sit a little bit more. Pull and there you can see the
yolk has actually stayed and some of the whites have stayed too and I think the coloring
is just beautiful. These are looking just the way I want. They’re looking moist but not
overcooked. When they’re just about done, that’s when you want to take them off the
heat because they will continue to cook. I'm going to set these aside because I've got
some other things to do with my toast. These are still warm.

You want to make sure that you got the right presentation side. This looks like a great
side because it has greater surface area and I'm going to need it for my eggs. So I'm going
to take this wonderful mascarpone mixture and I'm going to slather a good portion here
on this wonderful artisan bread. We’ll do another one here.

Now if you don’t have mascarpone, that’s fine. You can actually use cream cheese.
Cream cheese works just as well but because this is a special occasion, I thought I’d
splurge and I want it to really stay with the Italian and Mediterranean theme. The
difference between mascarpone and cream cheese is actually mascarpone or mascarponé
is an Italian cream cheese and of course it's a little more of an artisan type of a cheese.
We’re here in the United States, the cream cheese is a little thicker whereas the
mascarpone is a lot sort of more spreadable, a little bit more—I think there is a higher
butterfat to it as well. That looks great.

That’s exactly the way I want them to look. What I'm going to do is portion this out right
there and I’ll fix this a little bit later but you get the idea. Here we go. Let’s flip that
around because that looks really pretty. It smells so good. Now, what we’ve all been
waiting for is our salmon. You can use a variety of salmons if you want. These are the lox
we’ve decided to use because I think the color and actually the texture and the flavor is
terrific with the eggs. I have actually had a hot smoked salmon which is really delicious
as well. So this is a cured salmon and the other one is an actual smoked salmon which is
already hot or heat is utilized when you're using a hot smoked salmon as opposed to a
cured.

There we go. To garnish, makes sense, Mediterranean. Look at my herbs here. I've got
some basil. Actually you know what, I'm going to place this on a plate if you don’t mind.
I'm getting ahead of myself. I think the presentation part is always my favorite. So, let’s
do this. Then what id o is I like to top it off with some salsa verde. Salsa verde is really
simple. Put it an a blender, what you're putting in is olive oil, basil, anchovies, garlic of
course, a little red wine vinegar and some parsley and you're good to go. This will keep
for quite some time because of the oil. The oil actually provides a layering and it's
actually a preservative. It helps to preserve because it doesn’t oxidize once the oil is
separated. So I'm going to just drizzle this over and look at the color. Is that beautiful? I
will garnish it with some basil and to add just a little bit more color, I have my reduced
balsamic and I'm just going to place that around the plate. It just makes everything pop.
There you have it, smoked salmon breakfast bruschetta.