Kentucky Hot Browns

Time for another culinary post… A few days ago we were watching the food network. Specifically, we watched Throwdown with Bobby Flay. This particular episode was all about a dish I’d never heard of – the “Kentucky Hot Brown.”

As we washed the episode and learned about the dish, we both started saying “that sounds really good.” By the end of the show, we had determined to make hot browns.

We went to the store the next day and bought the necessary items, remembering as best we could what was involved on the show (how do you make a Molnay sauce again? Oh yeah, Bechamel + Cheese). We then got fresh tomatoes from the garden, and I set to work:

I put a couple of very thick slices of roasted turkey breast on a thick slice of white bread (crust removed). On top of that went a couple of a tomato slices, sauteed just to the point of charring. Then a very healthy portion of molnay sauce (easy to do: Flour, butter, milk, cheese) slathered all over it. I put it under the broiler for a few minutes, just until the sauce was bubbly and the top golden brown, then put it on plates, topped it off with more of the tomatoes and a couple strips of bacon.

Can you feel your arteries clogging?

The result:

This is what each of us ate: a DOUBLE portion of hot browns (really, each of those should be a whole serving), plus some fresh fried zucchini just because it was ripe. It was so tasty that we both ate just about all of it, and with all that turkey and cheese and bacon, sleepiness soon set in and we retired relatively early that night.

The verdict: This one is a keeper. EXCELLENT comfort food that isn’t very hard to do, and tastes GREAT.