Things wot I Made Then Ate: sandwich

Showing posts with label sandwich. Show all posts

sandwich., cappicolla mortadella, melted cheese, toasted sourdough

Roast beef sandwich, pan-fried bread

This is my preferred bread for sandwiches presently. It has several advantages. It is dense and substantial while delicate and light without being airy. It does not compress on the roof of one's mouth. It is easy and fast to prepare in the amount needed per batch, so no need to buy a loaf of bread and have it sitting around becoming stale or growing fungus. And no need to buy a dozen tortillas or fixed amount of pita. There is no surplus, there is never any waste and it is always absolutely fresh as can be.

Anasazi bean paste. The beans are particularly suitable for this technique. Their texture somewhat mealy, they absorb water readily.

Beans turned to powder using a coffee mill

Water 1 + 1/2 X the amount of beans

Spices to suit your contentment

salt/pepper, of course

garlic (here powder)

oregano (Mexican type, this time)

cumin (mere pinch)

mustard powder (because I like it)

chile powder (Dixon type, from New Mexico)

butter

Heat in pulses in the microwave, stirring between pulses. Four stirs this time. Stirring makes sure the powder does not sink to the bottom and clump. It is very good with multiple uses. Here the bean paste is used as a spread, but a substantial and nutritious spread.

I recommend trying this with any dry bean on hand, but I especially recommend Anasazi beans and black beans. All beans work very well. I honestly do not understand why this is not seen in cookbooks.

Roast beef purchased on sale from Tony's Market a few blocks down the street.

Tomatoes are never refrigerated. If you do not get to them within a few days they begin to wrinkle.

Mortadella sandwich on homemade bread

3 cups flour unsifted.

1 + 1/2 cup water

1/4 t commercial yeast

1 t salt

Slightly less than 100% hydration.

A cup of sifted flour is usually 4oz. A scooped cup of compacted flour is aprox 5oz. So 15 oz. flour

A cup of water is 8 liquid oz. So 12 oz. water.

Mixed to shaggy dough. Not kneaded. Covered and left alone for 12 hours. Dumped onto lightly floured work surface. Hands floured, bench scrapper floured. Edges pulled and stacked. Shaped into a reasonable blob. Rested for 20 minutes. Baked at high temperature for 25 minutes inside a preheated clay cloche, an upside down chicken roaster. Uncovered and baked an additional 10 minutes to darken and partially dehydrate.

This bread is outstanding. It is what professional bakers aim for. The yeast partially digests the flour over that extended length of time as it grows. The dough is partially fermented. That makes the baked bread more readily digestible with less simple sugars, as partially fermented foods are, miso and the like. It is better health-wise than commercial bread that breaks down to sugar, as well as more substantial, more flavorful, and more satisfying.

The large bubbles, the nice open crumb is a thing of beauty. So unlike commercial mass produced bread that is whipped up quickly within a few hours, punched down to reduce bubbles to uniformly small size to resemble synthetic sponge.

Relish on one side, my own mustard on the other

I cannot stop eating these sandwiches. Sometimes with tomato, sometimes with cheese. Occasionally with avocado. I eat two or three at a time. I already went through one prepackaged 1/2 pound of smallish mortadella, and one full pound of large deli mortadella and now I am starting my second. I've had Boar's head and Imported from Italy, I suppose, eh, Boar's head is imported too, from Canada, this being the U.S.

Bacon lettuce and tomato with cheese sandwich on homemade bread

Homemade bread made rapidly somewhat carelessly but no less expertly. It contains a bit of rosemary picked from a bush on the terrace.

I notice this thin bacon cooks crispier, crunchier, more easily and much faster.

Jerk chicken sandwich

Look at that crumb. Lookatit! Look. at. that. cruuuuuuuuuuuuuumb.

Did you hear Ethel Merman just now?

A surprisingly high number of chefs report disliking raw onions.

cut onion --> damage cells --> release enzyme --> break down sulfides --> to sulfenic acid --> acted upon by another enzyme --> giving off volatile gas synpropanethial S oxide --> becomes all hurty and teary --> drop knife, run away

This tragic and disabling cascade of events can be avoided by 10 seconds in the microwave or a rinse under water. These chefs, I've listened to them with sympathetic ears, need to get over themselves.

Sous-chefs are so-called because the original chefs were drawn from the North American Sous tribe.

That was a test. The tribe's name is Sioux not Sous.

Bacon sandwich

The original idea was soft sourdough bread and bacon.

But while the bacon cooked the bread turned into toast and I began to notice employable elements all over the place, cheese and lettuce and mayonnaise and avocado all found their way to the work surface and before I knew it the whole thing is changed.