Hey! How ya doin’? Welcome back to another edition of Sunday Gravy. I know it’s not Sunday but I’ll be deferring to the NFL until the playoffs are over.

Before getting started I have to address a glaring blasphemy from the banner picture. No it’s not the title, I’ll get to that, it’s the goddamn bread. Holy shit I hear them yelling in the streets as we speak. And they’re carrying pitchforks!

That IS a goddamn English muffin and not a hard roll. It’s not my fault I SWEAR TO GOD! I live in L.A. and to be quite honest? Our bread is shit out here. Absolute crap that is either all flour and no substance or dense as a motherfucking hockey puck. Somebody needs to take the initiative and open a bakery that makes real goddamn bread and not the shit they sell as bread in Los Angeles.

Pork roll, egg and cheese goes on a goddamn hard roll, Kaiser roll or even a bagel not a fucking English muffin. Observe:

I was working with what I had available and the muffin made the most sense due to its ability to keep its structural integrity during the eating process.

That is all.

Where were we?

Oh yeah, pork roll! To address the obvious, I am certain that there are a great many of you out there with the question, “Fucksa pork roll?”

Allow me to retort.

Pork roll is a regional meat-like item that is indigenous to the state of New Jersey but is also quite popular in Philly, New York State, Delaware, etc. The product is made by Taylor Ham originally developed by Jon Taylor of Trenton New Jersey in 1856. It is a Jersey Shore staple, and if you go to a breakfast place there you are almost guaranteed to find it on the menu.

To address the name, many people can get quite contentious when discussing this sandwich as it’s known by several different names around the region. Down south near Philly it’s called Taylor Ham, egg, and cheese which I find a little pretentious and definitely containing too many syllables. On the Central Shore where I used to live (Belmar) it’s pork roll, egg, and cheese dammit!

Look! There are even t-shirts to prove it!

Now, pork roll itself is a little hard to describe because it has several unique qualities. First off it’s not smoked or really cured like a bologna or a salami, and it’s not smoked like a ham so it can NOT be compared to this.

DAK! DAK! DAK! DAK!

It’s a little closer in texture to a cooked salami or even a kielbasa but with a more subtle flavor. It is also NOT SPAM. Fuck that.

They do serve it individually sliced and packaged similar to the way sliced bologna is sold, but us old school Jerseyphiles know that the best way to purchase it is this way!

Yep that’s a 3 pound goddamn cloth bag. Lots of folks just get a big ass knife and slice right through the bag but I tend to show a little more discretion and peel the bag back and then slice the pork roll. It’s best served pan fried in a little butter, and I wouldn’t recommend eating it right out of the bag.

If you have an interest in this odd meat material, of course it can be ordered online and shipped directly to your home. Here’s the link. Yes, there really is an option to order (4) 6 pound bags. I tell yez, folks are fanatical over this shit. Pretty much every refrigerator on The Shore has a bag of pork roll in it. However, I did not procure my pork roll this way.

Time to drop some mad internet love.

Last week I made a trip to San Diego to visit youngest right and the new grandbaby. My kid was working so many hours around the holidays that this was the first time we could get together for our gift exchange.

A few years back after she graduated from high school I took youngest right on a trip to New York City for a few days, Philly for a few days, and a good week or so on the Jersey Shore. I have “Family” on the shore. By family I don’t mean by blood but these are some of my favorite folks ever, and I have to visit every few years. While visiting, the kiddo got the full Jersey immersive experience and yes we had pork roll, egg, and cheese. Upon consuming said item youngest right announced to the table “Holy fucking shit this is delicious!” She inherited my vocabulary.

Cut back to last week. While I was visiting in San Diego somehow the topic of pork roll turned up and the kid said that she wishes she had some. I tell her that you can order it online and showed her the link above. In all honesty I only need to eat this like once or twice a year. It’s not the healthiest sumbitch out there, and I don’t feel like ordering a 4 pound bag of it. While doing my Google search I typed in “Pork Roll” and the subject “Pork Roll San Diego” showed up as a Google hit. Intrigued I followed the link and stumbled across this place right there in San Diego.

It’s called Giorgino’s Deli and it’s owned by Philly transplants and they carried pork roll! Get the fuck outta here! The kid and I carried the wee baby lassie downtown to try this place for dinner. We ordered a cheesesteak (witout) and a pork roll, egg, and cheese. We both had half of each sandwich.

Mother. Fucker!

I’ve sampled my reasonable share of cheesesteaks over the years, having lived on the Shore and all and this place rivals Pat’s, Rick’s or Geno’s in Philadelphia. I AM NOT SHITTING YOU HERE! It was exactly like a real Philly cheesesteak down to the imported bread from Amoroso’s in Philadelphia itself. If you can get to San Diego and it’s easier than you can get to Philadelphia then you need to try this place. I can’t give it enough praise. Really sweet people who own the joint too.

Now the pork roll, egg and cheese? Youngest right said it best “Yep, that’s the real shit right there.” I spoke with the owners and told them that they weren’t just authentic but that they were as good as anything I’ve had on the East Coast and they thanked us. I also told them that this was the first pork roll I had in too damn long and the owner kind of whispered on the side “You know? I can sell you some.”

Boom bitches! Pork roll procured! Thanks Giorgino’s! – Really check them out, they’re on 28th street between B and C streets just East of downtown San Diego.

“So stop yanking our dicks and make the fuckin’ thing already!”

Alright. Alright. Jesus fucking relax over here.

I wanted to give my usual long winded spiel first because this shit is as easy as it gets.

Pork Roll, egg and cheese!

Get some pork roll, about “too/tree” slices per sandwich oughta do.

Slices of white American cheese. Yes it’s got to be American cheese. I prefer white American cheese over yellow American cheese since yellow American cheese is basically white American cheese with yellow dye #5 in it.

Some good bread as mentioned above.

One egg per sandwich made.

Butter and a skillet to cook it in.

That’s it.

The potatoes you see in the photo should be familiar since I made them in the biscuits and gravy post. They are my version of a lyonnaise potato with sliced potatoes, sliced onion, salt and pepper and maybe some “essence” sprinkled on top. Now the potato chips in the banner photo are “Wise Original” chips. Wise is also out of Pennsylvania and their products can be found all over the East Coast.

Let’s take a look at that pork roll!

Why does it have a slice across it making it look like Pacman or some kind of shit?

Class?

That’s right! So it doesn’t puff up in the middle during cooking and cook unevenly. It’s science!

Let’s go ahead and make this chronologically.

Wash the potatoes and slice them into fairly healthy slices like so:

Get these into a pan with a little butter and a little oil and heat up. Over medium heat toss in the potatoes, add the seasonings and the sliced onion. Cook until golden brown and not raw in the middle. No lie people, it’s going to take about half an hour just for the potatoes.

You can use any pan you have, it doesn’t have to be like my badass cast iron skillet. I like to take the skillet out and let it get some cooking love every few weeks but you can use whatever you’ve got.

Get another pan out while the potatoes are finishing up and place a tab of butter in there. Heat to a medium/medium-low and toss in the sliced pork roll.

Cook the pork roll for about 3-5 minutes per side until browned and caramelized. One of the cool things about the content of the pork roll is it has a little added sugar so when you cook it in some butter it caramelizes and gets crispy on the edges. You want crispy edges but you don’t want to over cook it either.

Toast the bread, add half a slice of cheese and put about half of the cooked pork roll on top. Add another half slice of cheese followed by the rest of the pork roll then finally add your cooked egg. You can scramble the egg I guess and it would be a little cleaner to eat but this really needs a fried egg cooked to just “over easy.”

My fried egg trick: crack the egg and place in a small bowl. I used the same pan that I cooked the pork roll in but added another little pat of butter. Slowly slide the egg from the bowl into the pan. This helps to keep the yolk from breaking. Over medium heat, cook until the egg is done on the bottom. Even though I said it was “over easy” this egg never went “over” at all. Place a small lid on the pan and cover for just a few seconds if you don’t want “sunny side up” or do what I do and just slosh some of the butter/pan grease over the top of the cooking egg until it reaches your desired doneness.

Here is what we have when served with the potatoes.

That’s a sexy motherfucker isn’t it?

You can customize this condiment-wise to fit your own tastes. I have seen the following put on a pork roll, egg and cheese:

ketchup

mayo

sriracha

Louisiana hot sauce.

Cholula hot sauce.

pico de gallo

You get the idea. Think of it as a hot sandwich and make it your own.

What you have here is a crispy bread, and a kick of the salt from the pork roll, along with a nice melt from the American cheese. It’s savory, hot, fatty, messy when you get the silky egg yolk running down your wrist (this is a sandwich after all – fuck that fork bullshit) and just over-the-top indulgent and satisfying.

Fucking delicious.

I hope this gives you insight into the odd regional phenomenon of the Jersey style pork roll and if you are curious by all means procure some of your own. This meal is entry level easy and is sure to blow some minds of the uninitiated.

Now if you’ll excuse me… “Yo! Me and Tommy and Paulie and Mikey are heading down to the shore, any of yez want to tag along? No? Ahh, you’re alla buncha pricks anyway! Fuck allah yez!”

Be nice to each other.

PEACE!