Posted by Robin Bellinger, April 14, 2008 at 1:00 PM
Photograph from RockyEda on Flickr
I've been working my way through everyone’s suggestions in response to last month’s post about how to eat sardines. With many methods and recipes left to try, I have already discovered one new favorite. Sardines and hard-boiled eggs didn’t sound like a natural combination to me, but since more than one person cited the pairing with some fondness, I had to try it.
It’s really good! Especially on an English muffin. Thank you, hanak and allakarasik. Obviously this is a great source of protein for people who eat fish and eggs but not meat, and sardines are full of the wonderful fish oil we could all use more of. For people like my dad (who said, “Here’s a recipe for sardines: Give the sardines to the cat and order a pizza”), this could be a good gateway sardine dish. The eggs really mellow out the oily little fish, and the texture of the salad on a soft roll is very comforting.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, April 7, 2008 at 4:15 PM
During the time I spent studying abroad in London, I became infatuated with the egg and watercress sandwiches you could buy pre-wrapped at the corner store. I loved how the simple ingredients were transformed into a unique package. Perhaps I loved them so because they were the cheapest possible meal I could find, but I came home with a real hankering for them in all their packaged glory.
I thought it would be easy to recreate them—it’s basically just eggs, mayonnaise, watercress, and bread. I attempted to crack the code a few years back, but something essential was missing and my early interpretations always ended up a tad too creamy and bland. This recipe from Saveur is much better. This recipe spikes that basic mixture with white wine vinegar and mustard, adding a wonderful contrast to the creamy mayo. It’s also advertised as an open-faced sandwich, which allows the watercress to play a more critical roll. But it’s just as good squeezed between two slices of bread.
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, March 31, 2008 at 12:45 PM
You don’t need me to tell you to pack a sandwich for lunch, but lately for some reason I can’t get peanut butter and honey out of my head. Though I’ve been eating it on spelt bread in a gesture towards healthiness, I often dream of eating it on the dreadfully soft white bread we used to use at summer camp.
As a kid and a teenager I spent three weeks every summer in a screen and concrete cabin on the shores of a lake about an hour outside of Austin. The camp cook, Barney, was a little-seen but much-beloved institution. Each cabin was expected to make up a little song and dance in praise of him at least once a week (no joke). We looked forward to certain meals obsessively, but I can remember only a few now: honeybuns for breakfast, chicken fried steak and apple crisp for lunch, and taco salad for dinner. (For some reason out biggest, hottest meal of the day was served at lunchtime, when the temperature usually hovered around 97 degrees. Perhaps the director’s hope was that we would all pass out during the required post-lunch siesta instead of playing pranks on our sleeping counselors.)
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 29, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Each Saturday evening we bring you a Sunday Supper recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.
I don't know what did it, but this past week I'd been craving a good sloppy Joe. Luckily, I had just the recipe for these tangy-sweet sandwiches.
You see, a couple years ago, I had a similar craving, but I wanted to avoid whatever weirdness might be in those canned mixes. I was thinking aloud about this around a coworker at the time, and the following week, out of nowhere, she dropped off a hand-written recipe on my desk for "Hamburger Goo." I'm not going to lie and say it's faster than opening a can and pouring, but really, all you have to do is dice some onion and chop some celery and you've done the heavy lifting. After that, it's just a matter of browning some ground beef and measuring out some basic pantry staples.
If you're a fan of the canned stuff, this recipe is a pretty close approximation, and you can feel all the better for it knowing exactly what goes into it.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, March 26, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Photo courtesy of Adam Fields
If you love meat and you love sandwiches, then it doesn't get better than a sandwich made by a butcher. Makes sense, right? I mean, if a guy can take apart an animal, he probably knows how to make it taste delicious. That's all I could think about last night as I stood with 11 other "classmates" at a pig butchering class in the Brooklyn Kitchen (a hipster's Williams Sonoma for New Yorkers who love to cook). The butcher, Tom Mylan, was dissecting half of a 200-plus-pound Berkshire pig, and the 12 of us had paid $75 to watch him do it, ask him anything we wanted, and, of course, divvy up the meat at the end of the show.
My question (aside from how I could get his job): If you were going to make a sandwich from this glorious animal, what part would you use and how would you do it?
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, March 24, 2008 at 4:30 PM
In my family, Easter means a big old ham and lots of leftovers. When the parents hugged us goodbye they sent us on our way with much more ham than a normal person should eat. Instead of just going with the regular old ham sandwiches, we decided to try our hands at the Cuban sandwich. I know there are lots of rules, and I was initially was leery about approaching a sandwich as contentious as this one. Hell, even poor Howie of Top Chef fame (remember him?) got crucified for not pressing his interpretation of the sandwich down.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 6, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Monday was a croque monsieur. Tuesday was a ham-and-brie-and-apple sandwich. Yesterday we went vegetarian with a goat cheese, artichoke, and tomato sandwich. Today we're back on the pork tip. Sorry. We're like junkies here at the Serious Eats office. The Catskills Cubano recipe called to us from the pages of this week's featured cookbook, Panini Express, and we couldn't resist. I'd been wanting to make a sandwich on ciabatta to see how it reacted in our new panini press, and this one was pretty darn simple, with no pre-press prep other than chopping some peppers. From there, it was a simple matter of layering on pork and cheese.
The book's author, Daniel Leader, named this a Catskills Cubano in honor of the region in which his bakery is located. It's a slight variation on a traditional Cuban sandwich, in that he calls for pickled jalapeños instead of regular pickles and he uses serrano ham or prosciutto instead of the the more common cured ham used. We riffed on this one a little more, subbing in Hatch green chiles.
Win 'Panini Express'
If you're just now tuning in, you should note that we're giving away five (5) copies of this book here on Serious Eats this week. More details on that here.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 5, 2008 at 6:30 PM
Today's recipe from this week's featured cookbook, Panini Express, veers away from the ham of the last two days and heads straight to vegetarian territory with Artichoke, Oven-Roasted Tomato, and Goat Cheese Panini. Although tomatoes aren't in season as I write this, oven-roasting those you do find this time of year can help concentrate their flavor, sweetening them enough to play against the other flavors in this pressed sandwich.
But that's not what we did. We didn't have four or five hours to roast tomatoes today, so we subbed in jarred sun-dried tomatoes. We also didn't want to buy an entire bunch of basil just for one tablespoon's worth, so we subbed in some greens we had growing in the office AeroGarden.
Win 'Panini Express'
If you're just now tuning in, you should note that we're giving away five (5) copies of this book here on Serious Eats this week. More details on that here.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 4, 2008 at 3:15 PM
Today's recipe from this week's featured cookbook, Panini Express is for a Ham, Brie, and Apple French Toast Panini. Apologies in advance for going for another ham-and-cheese variation. I was halfway through preparing this recipe when I realized I'd just done a similar sandwich yesterday. I couldn't resist this one, though, because I've been a fan of the ham-brie-apple combo since discovering it a few years ago. Add the French toast, I thought, and this recipe's a knockout.
As I found out, this recipe really is a knockout. You're essentially taking some fairly rich items—brioche, eggs, and brie—and combining them in a hot, pressed-sandwich package. It's a lot to take in, and I was pretty much "game over" a half a sandwich in. It might be the kind of sandwich you could cook up on a lazy weekend for brunch and serve as halves to family or friends with some fruit or a salad.
Win 'Panini Express'
If you're just now tuning in, you should note that we're giving away five (5) copies of this book here on Serious Eats this week. More details on that here.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 3, 2008 at 1:45 PM
The Panini Express Neo-Classic Croque Monsieur recipe makes two hot, crisp ham-and-cheese sandwiches.
The first recipe out of the gate for this week's featured cookbook is what Panini Express authors Daniel Leader and Lauren Chattman call a Neo-Classic Croque Monsieur. It's "neo-classic" because, Leader says, it's a bit more rustic than the "dainty" versions typically served in France; it uses thick-cut ham, along with chopped cornichons and grainy mustard to "give it some heft."
Win 'Panini Express'
If you're just now tuning in, you should note that we're giving away five (5) copies of this book here on Serious Eats this week. More details on that here.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, February 20, 2008 at 1:15 PM
Posted to the Serious Sandwiches Flickr Photo Group by Dylan Valliere
Normally, I like to leave the serious sandwich making to the professionals, and typically this column focuses on already prepared sandwiches available in some sort of complete and purchaseable form (i.e. all you have to do is pay and eat). But occasionally I'll enjoy making a sandwich for myself at home, and I'm not ashamed to admit that sometimes those recipes will come from surprisingly un-serious sources. That sandwich looks good, right? Who cares where the recipe came from? And it takes more than 30 minutes to make, so how bad could it be?
Serious is not a word that most use to describe Rachael Ray's food, but I'll be damned if that doesn't look like a delicious tuna sandwich.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, January 29, 2008 at 12:45 PM
As I try to eat healthier this year, instead of drastically changing my diet, I've tried to make familiar standbys more fit-friendly. And almost nothing's more familiar at lunchtime than the ol' chicken salad sandwich. I've taken to this recipe, which I've adapted to my own liking.
In it, plain nonfat yogurt replaces mayo, and plenty of herbs and fruit keep things interesting. Serve it on the bread of your choice, though I like it on a nice rye.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, November 23, 2007 at 12:00 PM
For sandwich lovers all around the country, Friday is pretty much our Super Bowl. Starting late on Thursday night and continuing until the Thanksgiving meal is exhausted, amateur sandwich chefs will engage in a ritual that is as American as Thanksgiving itself—the transformation of Thanksgiving leftovers into a very serious sandwich. My concoction is pretty standard (roll, turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce), so I decided to turn to Serious Eats' contributors for some day-after-Thanksgiving, sandwich-making inspiration.
The answers run the gamut and should provide you with more than enough ideas for your pile of leftovers. Not surprisingly, every sandwich contained turkey, and all but two called for cranberry sauce of some kind. Cheese showed up on three sandwiches (brie being the most popular), and mayo is the clear condiment of choice, appearing four times (five if you count aioli), beating out mustard (one sandwich) and butter (two sandwiches). And bacon shows its almighty power in appearing twice, despite the fact that it requires you to cook more food, thereby totally defeating the purpose of the day after Thanksgiving, "leftovers" sandwich (but undoubtedly making it more delicious).
A list of Serious Thanksgiving Sandwiches, courtesy of the Serious Eats Team, after the jump.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, October 31, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Photograph from concrete angel on Flickr
In honor of Halloween, I wanted today's Serious Sandwich to be truly terrifying. Something that was both scary good, but also just plain scary. I think this one fits the bill. I don't know if it's good, but it certainly is terrifying on many levels. Why bother with the same old Italian hero at your Halloween party when you can petrify your guests with Paula Deen's "Snake Bites Sandwich"?
Enter the haunted house of a Paula Deen sandwich, where the first obstacle is finding the bologna, ham, salami, and Monterey Jack that have become lost in the winding, crisp crust (from a can of course). Beware of being lashed by its roasted red pepper tongue, as you stare down the beast through its chilling pimento-stuffed olive eyes. Surprisingly there's no extra fat in this recipe (considering the source), so you'll have to be satisfied with the already butter-filled crescent rolls that make up the easily penetrable skin of the beast. Ooooh, and don't forget a little dip in Dijon mustard. Creepy indeed!
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Posted by Ed Levine, September 11, 2007 at 3:30 PM
In Louisville, Kentucky, says John T. Edge, author of Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South
, the Brown Hotel "has been the epicenter of the social whirl. Debutante parties, Christmas balls, weddings by the score."
The Hot Brown Sandwich, Edge says, was created by the hotel's chef a few years after the place opened and is "the ideal hangover food." Click through to the recipe, and see if you agree.
If you'd like to read more about The Brown Hotel, the Hot Brown Sandwich, and other Southern delights, grab a copy of Southern Belly for yourself.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 28, 2007 at 2:30 PM
If you missed yesterday's intro post on it, this week's Cook the Book features Jenni Ferrari-Adler's Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, a book in which food writers and food-crazy authors share what it means to cook for one or dine alone. Today's recipe accompanies an essay written by Marcella Hazan, the woman credited with almost singlehandedly introducing Americans and Brits to traditional Italian cooking.
Hazan declares that she will eat "almost anything enclosed between two slices of bread," and offers her recipe for tost, "a grilled cheese sandwich whose ideal components are fontina cheese and cooked Parma ham."
It's no surprise that a sandwich would appear in a book dedicated to eating alone, but unlike that old solo-dining standby, the PBJ, this one is anything but dull—and is almost as quick to make.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, August 22, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Photograph courtesy of Jason Perlow
I'm not exactly sure where the term "Sangweech" came from, but I know I want one. Look at that thing. The photo was posted to the Serious Eats Flickr photo group by Jason Perlow, a friend of Serious Eats and publisher of the blog Off the Broiler. Normally I leave the serious sandwich-making to professionals, but if this photo is any indication, greatness can be achieved in your own home, with an incredibly large ciabatta loaf and the desire to stuff said loaf with more cold cuts than one would consider reasonably safe.
What I'm saying is, try this at home—but you may need building permits.
I know it's cruel to post about a sandwich that you can't buy, so to make up for it, here are Perlow's instructions for making a Sangweech of your own.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, June 22, 2007 at 12:15 PM
The perfect setting requires a serious sandwich, and The Girl & The Fig, in downtown Sonoma, California, serves it up in the form of the Pork Tartine. Pronounced "tarteen," the word is essentially French for anything delicious, layered on a single slice of bread; or, just a fancy way of saying "open-faced sandwich." While many will argue that a proper sandwich requires two pieces of bread, I say why discriminate?
With only one day in wine country, my wife and I wanted to make it count foodwise, so we hit pay dirt when we unearthed Sondra Bernstein's restaurant nestled in the Sonoma Hotel. It's exactly the kind of place you want to eat lunch on a beautiful Northern California day—good food, fresh ingredients, and most important, an outdoor patio.
Great bread is the biggest endorsement for an open-faced sandwich. One giant thick slice of a good bread allows you to fully appreciate the chewiness that would be lost with two thinner slices of grilled bread—and two slices of thick bread is just too much.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, June 21, 2007 at 4:30 PM
And today's Cook the Book recipe is for a Jersey Shore Tuna Sub. When I visit the Jersey Shore, subs somehow make it into my hands as if by magic—that is, unless the seagulls on the boardwalk (which are ruthlessly aggressive) steal them. This sub is one that both they and I would enjoy.
Like all the Cook the Book recipes this week, this one comes from Jasper White's Summer Shack Cookbook.
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Posted by Ed Levine, May 22, 2007 at 4:00 PM
As I mentioned yesterday when introducing this week's Cook the Book feature, James Peterson's What's a Cook to Do? explains almost everything, from how to deglaze a plan to how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Today, we're making the latter, after the jump.
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