The Confabulist

The New Saturday Morning Pleasure: Pear, Bacon, and Cheddar sandwich

At least two weekends a month, Rebecca and I wake up, throw some clothes on, and head down the Hayes St. corridor, and walk in to Arlequin for lunch.  She orders the Sage and Portabello Mushroom sandwich, no onions, and I order the Pear, Bacon, and Cheddar sandwich, both of which are toasted lovingly on levain bread in the panini machine until crisp and tasty.  We stop by Blue Bottle on the way home, and when we arrive back in our living room, put something on the telly and unwrap our delicious booty, Rebecca will attempt to convince me that I want to trade half of my sandwich for hers.  And she will fail.

Paradise Lost

Or at least that's how things used to go, back in the idyllic days of yore, before Arlequin To Go and the adjacent wine store did some remodeling.  While generally an improvement to the space in the sense of giving everyone more room to maneuver, the remodel also brought some adjustments to the menu, one of which saw the pear and bacon sandwich transform into an unholy pear and prosciutto sandwich. 

Not that I have anything against prosciutto, mind you.  But the previous sandwich had a delicate balance; it had just enough of each ingredient that you could taste each one, and it was thin and aerodynamic, but packed with flavor.  The mass of prosciutto they stuffed into its replacement overwhelmed the other flavors.  Plus, you know, sometimes you just want bacon, and the thick-cut bacon they used in the original sandwich was excellent.  Anyway, the prosciutto sandwich apparently didn't prove too popular, and it eventually disappeared from the menu altogether.

These days, when we find ourselves at Arlequin, I feel like a jilted lover.  ("Why don't you make me bacon like you used to?" is a cry, I imagine, heard in many a faltering relationship.) I have to make do with the Croque Arlequin when I go, which is a fine sandwich, but eating it always makes me feel sad in some small way, like a realization that, however fine your current relationship might be, the sex will never be as hot as it was with your ex.  Because your ex tasted like bacon, and really, what could top that?

Deliverance

For Christmas this past year, some good friends of ours gave us one of the most fantastic presents in existence:  the Bacon Of The Month Club.  (Studies have shown its magnificence to only be exceeded by that of the Threesome Gift Certificate and the Bacon Three Times Per Month Club).  It immediately occurred to us to try to replicate the Pear and Bacon Sandwich.

What do you know -- the result was stunning; even better than the original.  For hours afterward I had a warm, fuzzy feeling inside and the sense that all was right with the world.  Arelquin, I love ya, but we've reached a crossroads in our relationship.  I think we should eat other sandwiches.

I am not the only individual that has been moved to these lengths after eating Arlequin's abandoned creation.  My approach was very similar to hers, with the following differences:

• I spread an extremely thin layer of dijon mustard on one side of one of the slices of bread.
• I cooked the bacon with a second pan nestled on top of it to make sure that it cooks flat; this is critical.  Of course, if you're the kind of freak that owns a bacon press, you can use that instead.
• I sauteed the pears in butter to soften them up before adding them to the sandwich.
• I used a single layer of thick-cut bacon, which I think works better than multiple layers of thin bacon in this sandwich.  The bacon should be chewy rather than crisp.

In addition, I'd admonish you to use a really good bacon.  In this country we are slowly becoming aware that not all bacon is created equal.  Branch out a bit and see what's available to you locally.

Reheat, Reuse, Recycle

You can't help but sympathize with all their talk about pervasive materialism and the scalability of modern lifestyles.  Nevertheless, there's something about the frugality subculture that gives me the willies.  I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it is. Is it the sometimes thinly veiled crackpot ideologies?  The tedious aphorisms?  Or perhaps it's just the terrible, terrible food?  All I know is that I read their literature and I think that my idea of hell would be being trapped forever at a party with people like these and food like this.

(As an aside,  since it's the holiday season and all, I would like to take this opportunity to warn the many thousands of you who are no doubt racking your brains to determine what kind of gift you're going to get me this year that, no matter how frugal you are, I absolutely do not want any of these.  Although, if it's a choice between that and having you write me a poem from the heart...well, bring on the hot pads stuffed with rice.)

Alright, I'm done being snarky.  I must admit that there's something to be said for frugality.   When I throw a big dinner party, it makes me feel better about the cost and trouble of the event when I leverage the leftovers and unused ingredients in the following week's meals.  Last Monday, after the dinner party the previous weekend, Rebecca and I made quesedillas using (in part) cheese we'd purchased for the party.  And as I was making the salsa, I had a great idea -- why not add half of the pesto that I made for the party?  Since I only wound up using it for the salad dressing, there was plenty left over.  So I did, and a curious feeling came over me.  It was like I'd gotten away with something.  Like I'd gotten something for free.  Like I'd stolen it from someone who didn't deserve it.  This is what those frugal types must feel every day as they rinse out their I-can't-believe-it's-not-butter containers and haggle at yard sales.

Wednesday night I decided to make fish burgers, just to clean out the fridge.  Besides a few salmon steaks, I used all the leftover vegetables and herbs from the dinner party -- parsley, shiitake mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, a red bell pepper, ginger, garlic -- along with the rest of the bacon and tilapia that I'd purchased for the party. 

But using up ingredients isn't nearly as satisfying as reusing leftover prepared foods in ways that completely transform them. Into the mix went a bit of the salsa and the rest of the pesto. But the biggest coup was the two-day-old ciabatta that lay upon the coffee table.  (Or, er, speaking of reuse, upon the trunk that we use as a coffee table.)  I sliced it down the middle and then into thirds, toasted the heck out of it in the broiler, and then unleashed the fury of the Cuisinart.  In less than 10 minutes I had exactly as much breadcrumb as I needed to bind the fish burgers, with no need to sacrifice my precious, precious panko.

And you know what?  They were good!  It's no real loss that I didn't write down the recipe, as it was mostly odds and ends. But I did find this Chicken Burger recipe that's been sitting in my to-post bin for awhile now.  And I am all about reusing it.

Chicken Sausage Burgers

Ingredients:
1 1/4 lb boneless chicken thighs (or 1 2/3 lb with bones)
3/4 lb spicy italian sausage
1/4 cup pesto
1/4 cup cranberries
1 cup panko + more panko (you frugal types may substitute homemade bread crumbs)
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp garlic
1 tbsp asian chili-garlic sauce
salt/pepper
tangy goat cheese

Procedure:

Salt and pepper the chicken thighs and sear them very quickly on the highest heat.  (You're not trying to cook them through.)  Put them in a food processor and pulse until well (but coarsely) ground.  Remand to a large stainless steel bowl.  Remove the sausage casings and put the sausage in the bowl.  Mix the sausage and chicken by hand.  Add the pesto, cranberries, garlic, chili sauce, egg yolk, panko, and another tablespoon of salt.  Mix.  Continue to add panko in 1/4 cup increments until the mixture coheres and you can work it with your hands without it sticking to them too badly.

Form mixture into patties.  Cook the patties on a skillet on medium heat until the internal temperature of the burger reaches 165 degrees (about 10 minutes, depending on the size of your patty).  Serve on a toasted bun with goat cheese and a slice of tomato.

Reuben Sandwich Recipe

If I were marooned on a desert island and the menu from the only restaurant within swimming distance consisted of three types of sandwiches, I would want those sandwiches to be:

1. Soppressata with aged pecorino, ripe roma tomatoes, mayonnaise and dijon mustard on ciabatta,
2. Prosciutto, Stilton, and fig preserves baked into a sourdough round, and
3. A Pastrami Reuben between thick slices of toasted pumpernickel.

These closely edge out Banh Mi Dac Biet, Muffaletta, and Croque Madame, which would probably be next on the list in that order.  (Of course, if you ask me next week, that might all change.)  This weekend, for my last meal cooking for friends in the Orange County area, I decided to whip up some Reubens.

The traditional Reuben sandwich consists of corned beef, Russian dressing, sauerkraut, and swiss cheese on rye bread.  Contemporary versions sometimes use Thousand Island instead of the closely related Russian dressing and pastrami instead of the closely related corned beef.

An incredible amount of lore surrounds the sandwich and its primary condiment.  No less than three different creation stories exist for the sandwich itself.  If you're interested in contemporary food folklore at all, take the time to check out this incredibly fascinating article by Jim Rader of Merriam-Webster that evaluates the credibility of these claims.  The section on the Reuben begins about halfway down the page.

As far as why the dressing is called "Russian", it is asserted that it's because

• Early recipes included caviar [link].
• Early recipes included yogurt, which at the time was thought of as being a food that Russians consumed [link].
• it was pink, and in America at the time of the dressing's invention, Russian salads were thought of as having pink dressings [link].

The Bread:

The Reuben is most at home on dark Russian rye.  Pumpernickel will do, though, and quite frankly I don't exactly know what the difference is.  For this occasion, however, I decided to go in a non-traditional direction.  I bought the meats and other ingredients at a grocery store that caters to a Middle Eastern clientele, and they bake gorgeous flatbreads and sell them to you straight out of the oven.  As you can see in the picture above, I used these to wrap the Reuben filling, pinning it together with a toothpick.  This worked out very well.  The flatbread's flavor and texture worked spectacularly with the Reuben filling.  Sacrilege?  Maybe, but it's very tasty sacrilege.

The Contents:

• Pastrami (about 1/3 - 1/2 lb per sandwich)
• Gruyere or other Swiss cheese
• Sauerkraut

The Dressing:

There's no reason to use bottled Thousand Island dressing when you can make a much better Russian dressing at home in short order.

Russian Dressing:

• 1 c mayonnaise
• 1/4 c sour cream
• 1/4 c ketchup
• 1 tbsp horseradish
• 2 tbsp good wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp finely chopped garlic
• 1 tbsp celery seed or fennel seed
• 2 tbsp finely chopped dill pickle
• 2 tbsp finely chopped shallots (optional)
• 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Makes about 1 1/2 cups of dressing, or enough for 6 sandwiches.

The Assembly:

Normally, the sandwich is assembled, a little butter is put down on a hot pan, and the whole sandwich is grilled until the cheese melts and the bread is toasted.  My procedure is quite different, partially due to my preferences, and partially due to the constraints provided by the wrap.  I enjoyed the result immensely, though, so I may use this as the model for all of my future Reubens.

1. Shred the Gruyere.
2. Shred the Pastrami coarsely with your hands.
3. Mix the Pastrami, the Gruyere, and half of the sauce together in a bowl.
4. Microwave the mixture for 45 seconds per serving, or until the edges of the pastrami crisp.
5. Squeeze all of the liquid out of the sauerkraut.
6. Put down a thin layer of sauce on the bread.  Add the pastrami mixture and top with sauerkraut.
7. If you're using regular bread slices, grill the sandwich in a pan with a bit of butter.

The Dessert:

Balsamic Strawberry Shortbread:  an old standby, but it's quick and easy and sooo good.  Which, one presumes, is why it's an old standby.  Rebecca whipped up some shortbread, and between that and a little ice cream, you have a perfect dessert for company.  (The ice cream is in the center below the strawberries in the picture.)

The procedure is simple enough:

1. Slice 16 oz of fresh strawberries.
2. Pour 1/4 cup of good balsamic vinegar over the slices.
3. Add 2-3 tbsp of brown sugar and mix through.
4. Let mixture sit for 45 minutes in the refrigerator, tossing the mixture every 15 minutes.
5. Serve over ice cream, shortbread, puff pastry, cheesecake, or whatever you have lying around.
6. Top with a dollop of whipped cream, sour cream, creme fraiche, or whatever you have lying around.

I'm not normally the "fresh fruit and dairy" type of dessert person; I prefer my sins to be heavier and more decadent.  This is one simple dessert that is much greater than the sum of its parts, however.

Other resources:

• The Reuben Realm is a site devoted to reviews of the Reuben offerings from various restaurants.  Most of the reviews so far are centered around Indiana, so if you're nearby (and like Reubens) it might prove to be a valuable resource.
• Snopes has an entertaining discussion on the etymology of the word "pumpernickel".

IMBB #14: Orange You Hungry?

Orange is the theme of this month's IMBB, and what a theme it is!  An inspired bit of  lateral thinking by Foodgoat has left us with a  color, not an ingredient, to work with this month.  I am, as always, very curious to see how other people approached the theme.  Until then, here's my attempt:

Vertical food:

Some say it's trendy, some say it's already passe,  but I  think it's here to stay.  There's something special, something uniquely gratifying about vertical food.  Is it a protest against the entropy of the universe and the disorder and decay that seem to dominate our lives?  Is it the phallic nature of these towering constructions that is the source of their appeal?  Or is it a destructive impulse?  Is it that we take pleasure in toppling, dismantling, and then consuming the creations that our hapless hosts have  painstakingly built for us?  Perhaps.  All I know is, some food tastes better when it's taller than it is wide.

The recipe below should make four salads.  You may wish to increase the amount of the dressing you make, though, to suit people's preferences.

Tower of Orange:

• 1/2 small papaya
• 4 small (orange) tomatoes
• 1/3 head savoy cabbage
• 1 lb fresh salmon fillet
• 5 slices thick cut bacon
• 3 (orange) bell peppers
• 1 c chopped pea shoots
• fresh basil
• fresh tarragon

Render and reserve the fat from the bacon.  Chop the bacon into bits.  Sprinkle salt and pepper on the salmon fillet and pan-fry in 2 tbsp. of the bacon fat.  Remove the skin from the fillet and shred the salmon with two forks.

Chiffonade the basil and mix with the papaya.  Chop the tarragon and mix with the shredded salmon. 

Take a 16 oz plastic cup -- you know, a "beer cup" -- and cut out the bottom.  Grease the inside with nonstick spray or olive oil.  Turn the cup upside down on a flat-bottomed plate or bowl.  Drop a few tablespoons of each mixture into the cup and pack it down gently with the spoon.  We alternated the orange layers with the non-orange layers like so:

• Orange bell pepper
• Pea shoots
• Bacon bits
• Orange tomatoes
• White bean ragout
• Papaya/basil mixture
• Savoy Cabbage
• Salmon/tarragon mixture

But of course most any order will do.  Spoon the dressing around the sides of the cup and gently remove the cup.  The resulting tower is surprisingly stable and very impressive.

The 16 oz. cup results in a relatively large salad.  If you're serving this as part of a three or four (or more) course meal, you may wish to use a smaller cup.

White Bean Ragout:

• 1 can Cannelloni beans (or other white beans)
• 3 tbsp "bacon bits" (see above)
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely diced
• 1/2 cup stock

Saute the garlic for 4 minutes in 1 tbsp of olive oil.  Add the beans, the stock, the thyme, and the bacon and cook over a medium heat for about 5-8 minutes or until the bean mixture begins to thicken.

Curried (Orange) Tomato Dressing:

• 6 cloves of garlic, rough chopped
• 1/2 of a sweet onion, diced
• 8 (orange) tomatoes, rough chopped
• 20 or 30 coriander pods
• 3 cardamom pods
• 20 or 30 cumin seeds
• 3 or 4 peppercorns
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 cup vegetable stock
• apple cider vinegar

Toast the spices in a dry pan until you can smell them.  Grind them using a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder.

Saute the onions and the garlic in 2 tbsp of olive oil until the onions are translucent.  Add the ground spices and saute  for two more minutes.  Add the tomatoes and saute for two minutes.  Add the wine, the stock, and the thyme, cover, and let simmer for 20 minutes.  Let cool and puree.  Add vinegar to taste.

The result should be somewhat aggressively spiced and tart.  It may look like a soup, but it's really a salad dressing, so don't be afraid to add just a little more vinegar.

Conclusions:

I had fun making and eating this salad.  The various textural elements worked well together, I thought, and the flavors meshed satisfactorily.  The curried tomato dressing was quite good.  I do feel as though one or two of the flavors could be a bit more intense.  I may trade mangoes for the papayas the next time, for instance.

I count this as a definite success, if only because it has increased my confidence regarding vertical plating of salads.  The assembly was easy and fun and trouble-free.  And it was fun to eat, too!  This will definitely enter my dinner party repertoire.

Further Sandwich Experiments

I had some friends over this weekend and made a few more sandwiches. At right is a sandwich-in-progress comprising black forest ham, sopressata, fontina, tomatoes, arugula, and red currant jelly. Sort of a Monte Cristo without the egg batter. OK, not really. But it is pretty good, even if the jelly tends to liquify into a sticky mess after being baked. My guests liked it even better than the muffaletta, which you can see being prepared in the background.

The next day I made another version of the first baked sandwich I'd ever tried: proscuitto, stilton, and fig preserves. Still very good, though I didn't go crazy over it like I did last time. Next time I think I'll try using fresh fig slices over the preserves; that will cut down on the sweetness and minimize the mess.

Baked Muffaletta Recipe

Sandwiches are the working mules of the culinary world: they're functional, but they don't dress up well and you probably don't want to introduce them to important guests. There are a few routes that can give the humble sandwich a bit of social mobility. Baking the sandwich in bread dough leverages the social capital of freshly-baked bread to raise the status of a sandwich considerably.

This tactic can be applied to any sandwich that does not depend on a substantial amount of sauce (which will leak and leave the bottom half of the dough soggy) or fragile ingredients (such as lettuce or other greens, which will wilt in the heat and leach water as well). The Muffaletta is the perfect example of a sandwich that benefits from baking. While it is already considered the King of Sandwiches by some, it is only made more regal when served en croute.

Makes 2 large muffalettas. Serves 4-6

2 lb loaf of French bread dough
1/3 lb provolone, sliced
1/4 lb ham, sliced
1/4 lb mortadella, sliced
1/4 lb sopressata, sliced

For the olive salad:
1/2 lb green olives
1/2 lb black olives
5 cloves of garlic
6 pepperoncini
1 tbsp celery seed
1 tbsp dried oregano
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar

----

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the olive salad ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until coarsely chopped. (This will probably make more olive salad than you'll need -- close to twice as much, depending on how liberally you apply it. I'm sure you'll find other uses for it. Otherwise, feel free to scale the recipe down.)

Split the dough into four evenly sized pieces Take the two smaller pieces (because no matter how hard you try, they won't quite be evenly sized) and shape them into rounds with a rolling pin. They should be about 1/2 inch thick, if I'm remebering correctly. Roll the other two balls of dough into slightly larger rounds.

Lay the meats and cheeses down in layers on the bottom rounds top with the olive salad. Put the remaining rounds on top and fuse the edges. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until the bread has browned nicely.

last night a sandwich changed my life

Sometimes I get into these...food moods. For a week or so I'll have an intense craving for some type of food -- something relatively specific. A visual image of the food will pop into my head and distract me when I'm trying to do other things, like work or wash dishes or have sex. And it won't do to go out and get some. I have to try and make it. Once I do, whether or not I succeed in making something that's as good as my mental image, I've exorcised my craving. (Although if my attempt is spectacularly bad, sometimes I have to try again before the craving goes away.)

A couple of months ago it was "meat buns" -- you know, like chinese bbq pork buns. Tried to make some; it wasn't exactly an unqualified success, but at least my craving went away.

Lately, it's been baked sandwiches. Not just any baked sandwiches, mind you, but sandwiches embedded in a whole loaf of raw bread dough, whereupon the whole ensemble is baked together until the bread is done. Reubens are great made this way.

Rebecca said that she wanted to make one using Proscuitto. I decided to look around for Proscuitto sandwich recipes to see if I could find some interesting ideas. I found one that immediately siezed my imagination which involved Proscuitto, gorgonzola, figs, and fresh basil.

We bought the necessary ingredients this weekend. It's not a cheap sandiwch to make, that's for sure. 1/2 lb of decent Proscuitto, which is what we estimated it would take for the sandwich, cost around $10 by itself. The fig jam was $5, the basil around $2. I skimped on the cheese and bought domestic blue for around $3. Ingredients for the dough were, of course, comparatively free. The result is around $10 per sandwich, which is quite a bit for something you're cooking at home. I hoped it would be worth it.

We made the sandwiches last night. Assembly was straightforward We took the dough (which Rebecca had made over the weekend) and rolled it flat. We spread on the fig jam, put down a layer of proscuitto, added the cheese and the basil, and put another layer of proscuitto down, and then sealed the sandwiches. I folded mine like a calzone; Rebecca rolled hers like a pinwheel.

Then we put them in the oven and baked them for around 45 minutes. At that point the calzone-style sandwich was done, but the pinwheel needed more time, as the bread in the center of the pinwheel was still doughy, so we covered it in aluminum foil and put it back in the oven. Then we turned to the pressing matter of eating the first sandwich.

It was heavenly. Full of rich, complicated flavors, it was even a bit overwhelming. I have no idea what I'm going to eat tonight because anything else will pale in comparison.

Possible improvements:

o Shred the proscuitto.

o Use a little less fig jam, or make a fig paste from real figs, to reduce the sugar content. I want just as much fig flavor without as much intense sweetness.

o Go ahead and use better quality cheese. Genuine Gorgonzola or Stilton. You know you want to.

o Shape the sandwich by cutting a boule in half and filling the inside, re-molding it back into a boule shape, rather than flattening and folding or rolling the bread.