The Elvis Sandwich

With Tom Johnson

This is not an everyday breakfast recipe but you will find it to be a great brunch idea. Elvis loved peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwiches and when Chef Tom Johnson needed a new breakfast idea several years ago, he got inspired by one of Elvis’ food passions to create this sandwich. Fit for a king, this brunch food includes peanut butter, bacon and bananas, but he kicks it up a bit by making a caramelized sauce with two varieties of rum. It is also grilled in a French toast style batter of eggs and milk, making it a little like a French toast batter.

Although not all accounts agree that his sandwich had all of the ingredients here, most list the three main ingredients and some mention it being grilled in bacon fat.

If you think this is good, Elvis is also supposed to have loved to eat a loaf of Italian bread stuffed with a pound of bacon, peanut butter and grape jelly.

Ingredients

4 eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon clove
2 slices bread (per portion)
1 banana
1 tablespoon butter
1 ounce brown sugar
½ ounce Malibu rum
½ ounce Myers rum
2 slices cooked bacon

Instructions

1. Mix eggs, cream, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove together for batter.
2. Put peanut butter inside bread to make a sandwich and grill in pan with butter until golden on both sides.
3. In a separate pan, saute banana in butter until brown then add brown sugar. Reduce heat to medium and melt sugar, then deglaze with both rums.
4. Cook and chop bacon. Put the bananas with the sauce over the sandwich and use bacon as a garnish.

Recipe courtesy of Chef Tom Johnson, Catch 22, 2011.

The best way to describe Tom Johnson’s food, according to him, is “comfort food with a flare.”

Chef Tom Johnson, 38, grew up in Gloucester, Massachusetts. His first restaurant jobs include Charlie’s Place, Caption’s Courageous, and McT’s. In his twenties, he moved to Portland, Maine to pursue a career in kitchen management. Then, in his thirties, he made a choice to go after a degree in culinary arts. In 2006, he graduated from the New England Culinary Institute (NECI) in Vermont. He completed his culinary internship with James Beard Award Winning Chefs Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier of Arrows Restaurant in Ogunquit, Maine. Tom assisted in the opening of and became the Sous Chef of their sister restaurant, MC Perkins Cove, also in Ogunquit.

Chef Tom has many years experience opening and operating restaurants. He recently moved back to Gloucester in an effort to assist in the opening of a new restaurant on the north shore, Catch 22. Chef Tom is dedicated to providing a product that is of the up most quality and consistent.