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Roosevelt Avenue-Style Cemita Sandwiches Recipe

Daniel Gritzer
Roosevelt Avenue-Style Cemita Sandwiches Recipe

A cemita sandwich, as made in Queens New York. [Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

Cemitas are a type of Mexcian sandwich that originally hails from the State of Puebla, but they've taken on a life of their own in New York City. This recipe creates a cemita sandwich as served in the restaurants and taco trucks of New York, in particular along Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights. These are gently warmed sandwiches served on a griddled sesame bun with taco-meat fillings of your choice, avocado, lettuce, tomato, chipotles, refried beans, mayo, and queso Oaxaca, a Mexican string cheese, that's hand-shredded into hairlike strands. Papalo, a floral Mexican herb, adds its own special flavor. This is a cemita con todo—with the works.

Why It Works

  • Compressing the bread while griddling it helps create a sandwhich that's just a little easier to get your mouth around (though it's still plenty big and messy).
  • Warming the sandwich in the oven helps simulate the warming effect that happens when the cemita vendors wrap the sandwich in paper and foil, trapping heat from the warm meat filling and softening the shredded cheese.

Read more: How I Fell Hard for the Cemita in All its Forms: A Love Story With Recipes

  • Yield:Serves 4
  • Active time: 35 minutes
  • Total time:35 minutes

Ingredients

  • 4 homemade or store-bought cemita buns (see note), sesame-seed buns, or brioche buns, halved
  • 6 tablespoons warm Refried Beans
  • 2 cups warm pork carnitas, al pastor, carne asada, carne adovada, or other taco filling
  • Canola or vegetable oil, for greasing
  • 2 ripe medium Hass avocados, halved, pitted, and sliced
  • 1/2 cup shredded iceberg lettuce from 1 small head
  • 8 thin tomato slices from 2 medium tomatoes
  • 12 raw onion rings (about 1/4 inch thick)
  • 20 leaves papalo (see note), or fresh cilantro leaves
  • 4 chioptle chiles from 1 (7-ounce) can whole chipotle chiles in adobo
  • 1 cup shredded Queso Oaxaca from 1 (14-ounce) ball of cheese (see note), or low-moisture fresh mozzarella or string cheese
  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise

Directions

  1. 1.

    Preheat oven to 350°F. Heat 2 cast-iron skillets or 1 large griddle over medium-high heat until lightly smoking. Rub with oil using a paper towel and toast cut surfaces of buns, pressing down with a sturdy spatula to compress. Set aside.

  2. 2.

    Spread refried beans on bottom buns. Top with meat of choice. Arrange avocado on top of meat.

  3. 3.

    Top avocado with lettuce, tomato, onion, and papalo. Tear each chipotle into pieces and arrange on top of papalo. Mound cheese strands on top.

  4. 4.

    Smear top buns with mayonnaise and close sandwiches. Set on baking sheet and transfer to oven until just warmed through and cheese is just starting to soften throughout, about 3 minutes. Serve.

This Recipe Appears In
How I Fell Hard for the Cemita in All its Forms: A Love Story With Recipes
Culinary Director

Daniel cooked for years in some of New York's top American, Italian and French restaurants - starting at the age of 13, when he began staging at the legendary restaurant Chanterelle. He spent nearly a year working on organic farms in Europe, where he harvested almonds and Padron peppers in Spain, shepherded a flock of more than 200 sheep in Italy, and made charcuterie in France. When not working on, thinking about, cooking and eating food, he blows off steam (and calories) as an instructor of capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art.

Filed Under

Mexican Food

(and Tex-Mex favorites)
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