Reuben Sandwich, Step-by-Step
Photograph from A Cheese a Day
It's amazing how much goes into the making of the most basic elements of our food culture. We consider ham and cheese sandwiches, or PBJs, to be simple foods, but we don't often make our own cheese, bread, or peanut butter. Maybe that's what makes Jeremy's project at A Cheese a Day even more admirable. Not only has he set out to make a cheese a day, he also decided to make a Reuben sandwich entirely from scratch. He baked the rye bread, pressed the Swiss cheese, cured the pastrami, and mixed the Russian dressing. And made it seem possible for the rest of us to follow in his footsteps.
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5 Comments:
Now, that is ambitious! I love a good Rueben but I can't imagine making it from true scratch! What about the sauerkraut? Did he make that from scratch, too? Don't tell me that after all that trouble he forgot the sauerkraut?
DanaMcCauley at 6:51PM on 05/28/09
Wonderful article ... too bad he didn't make a Reuben sandwich!
A Reuben, by definition, is made with corned beef. What we have here is a Rachel sandwich with sauerkraut (most Rachels are made with coleslaw -- honestly I can't imagine combining pastrami with sauerkraut).
It's also generally accepted that traditional Russian dressing (as opposed to thousand island) is so named because it should include caviar.
maxzook at 7:14PM on 05/28/09
I love a Reuben, but I am not going to make it literally from scratch. I too noticed the missing sauerkraut.
I ate my first Reuben when I was 16 and it was in Los Angeles. It was on dark pumpernickle, had piles of corned beef, swiss, thousand island dressing and sauerkraut. When I lived in Phoenix they had a pastrami melt which was made the same as a Reuben which I liked as well.
@maxzook: I live in the South and a Rachel is made with turkey, not pastrami. I have never seen one with coleslaw here either. Must be something you Northerners came up with?
queenbleu at 11:21AM on 05/29/09
The sauerkraut isn't missing- it's those little white strands stuck to the cheese, and if you read the recipe you'll see he made his own.
CatBoy at 11:38AM on 05/29/09
Considering the amount of passion this sandwich evokes, it's probably a good thing I made a Reuben instead of, say, a pizza :)
thebelgianpanda at 12:58PM on 05/29/09