Sandwich

A traditional Vietnamese sandwich is made with pork, but in this beef variation, the flavors are the same. If you don’t want to make steak from scratch, you can use an equal amount of sliced roast beef in its place.

Bruschetta is a version of garlic bread (garlic toast, really), which is good by me because I think garlic should be its own food group. It’s great in just about everything. Fresh mozzarella is the stuff that comes in little round tubs of brine, not the stuff that comes shrink-wrapped and that you put on pizza. It’s soft and creamy and tastes amazing with the crispy bread, garlic, tomatoes, and basil.

In my family, I’m the sloppy joe guru. I stand there for a ridiculously long time adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that, getting the taste just right. Needless to say, I was skeptical about a veggie version. What are sloppy joes without the beef? Well, I can tell you with confidence that they are amazing. In fact, no one even realizes that they don’t have meat in them.

I wasn’t enthused about this recipe idea and was not particularly happy when I had to test it. In my opinion, the world didn’t need another mushroom burger. But I went to work and was quickly finished. “At least it didn’t take very long,” I mumbled. I bit into it, expecting the standard, run-of-the-mill mushroom burger you get in every restaurant nowadays, but then I had to pause mid-chew. This was no normal mushroom burger. This—this was a luau in my mouth! Okay, maybe that’s a tiny overstatement, but this is so easy and good, there’s no reason not to make it.

In my experience, wraps can go either way: sometimes they completely hit the spot, and other times they’re just boring fuel. This one always falls into the former category. Besides the fact that the colors of the food make it pretty (I know that sounds lame, but it’s true), the red pepper and avocado are an awesome combination of flavors and textures. It’s a little time-consuming to roast the pepper, but it’s so delicious that you’ll be glad you did it. Plus, you only need half of the pepper for each wrap, so you can store the other half to make another wrap in a jiff within the next few days.

Make this for your friends. They won’t believe that it didn’t come from that little Mediterranean place around the corner. This is a great recipe to partially prepare in advance and refrigerate until you’re ready to cook and eat, but once you cook the falafel, it’s best to eat it right away. This sauce is good on anything from veggies to bread. I like to make extra just for snacking on.

There is one sandwich in the Vietnamese repertoire and it is a tour de force. Garlicky meats, marinated daikon and carrot, chiles, cucumber, and cilantro tucked into a baguette moistened with mayonnaise and Maggi Seasoning sauce, bánh mì merges European and Asian food traditions. Each mouthful reflects how Vietnamese cooks co-opted French ideas to create new foods. All bánh mì use the same basic framework of ingredients, though a minority of makers use margarine or butter instead of mayonnaise. At Vietnamese delis, you make the call on the main protein element. The dac biet (special) is basically “the works,” a smear of liver pâté and slices of various cold cuts that show off the art of Vietnamese charcuterie (pages 156 to 171). Follow the custom of Viet deli owners and use your imagination to fill the sandwich. Just make sure it is boldly flavored. Pieces of grilled lemongrass beef (page 28), oven-roasted chicken (page 80), five-spice pork steaks (page 143), or char siu pork (page 142; pictured here) are excellent. Seared or grilled firm tofu or left over roasted lamb or beef will work, too. The bread doesn’t have to be one of the airy Vietnamese baguettes made with wheat and rice flours. (In the past, the best baguettes in Vietnam were made from wheat flour only and displayed an amazing crumb and crust.) You can use a regular baguette (though neither sourdough nor too crusty) or a Mexican bolillo (torpedo-shaped roll).

Traditionally deep-fried, shrimp toasts can be greasy affairs. During frying, the toasts soak up lots of oil and the shrimp topping often slides off the bread. A few years ago, chef Susana Foo, in her eponymous cookbook, offered an excellent solution for making this popular Chinese snack: baking the toasts. Her idea caught my eye, and I was fast to adapt the method for a Vietnamese version. The end product is a crispy, pinkish orange hors d’oeuvre that is delightfully grease free.

This is an egg sandwich I could eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Tangy sourdough bread is grilled to crusty perfection and topped with a meaty slice of griddled country ham, blistered sweet tomatoes, and a perfectly fried egg. A lightly dressed mound of slightly bitter, feathery frisée crowns this fork-and-knife sandwich.

A trip to New York City wouldn’t be complete without stopping in a Jewish-style deli, and you can’t go to a New York deli without trying a Reuben sandwich piled sky-high with corned beef brisket, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Russian or Thousand Island dressing. This is my southern take on that great sandwich. Lean bison is naturally lower in fat than beef, but its flavor is quite similar and you should feel free to use beef brisket if you can’t find or don’t care for bison. I often dress red cabbage as coleslaw for sandwiches, but cooking it first mellows its bitter note. Hundred Island Dressing is revamped from the original with a substitution of pickled okra for pickle relish. Okra reinforces the southern touch that’s also present in the barbecue sauce.

This is an obvious play on the southern pulled pork sandwich, which is typically made with braised pork shoulder. Duck legs are an interesting upgrade. While duck breasts are best cooked quickly and served rare, the legs need to be slow-cooked to make them tender. I believe in employing strong flavors such as fresh ginger, star anise, fennel, and cinnamon to cut through the richness of duck. The pickles and coleslaw are optional, but I can’t imagine having a pulled pork—or, in this case, pulled duck—sandwich without them. That crunchy, vinegary bit of freshness truly rounds out the sandwich.

This was on Bar Americain’s lunch menu on opening day, and in the years since then it’s become a staple for the lunch crowd. I first started serving a swordfish club at Mesa Grill years ago, and its popularity prompted me to redesign the sandwich with a more distinctly American feel. Creamy avocado slices add a nice touch of richness to the lean, meaty swordfish. Juicy tomato, peppery watercress, and a fresh lemony mayonnaise complete this vibrant sandwich. Serve with Barbecued Potato Chips (page 163) and pickled carrots and okra if desired.

The Kentucky sandwich. Built on a base of savory French toast, this open-faced sandwich needs no doubling up. Thick slices of turkey breast and juicy tomatoes are topped with a decadent cheese sauce, broiled until bubbly and golden brown, then crowned with crisp slices of bacon. It’s no surprise that this dish, named for its birthplace at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, has become Kentucky Derby lore.

The standard club sandwich layers turkey or chicken with bacon. Dressed up with lobster salad and thin slices of country ham, this sandwich is anything but standard. The fresh green onion dressing, both a component of the lobster salad and spread on the bread, has real impact in flavor and in presentation. The sandwich is amazing served on buttery, slightly spicy Chipotle Brioche, but a good-quality white Pullman loaf will certainly do in a pinch. Serve with a side of Barbecued Potato Chips (page 163) to complete the Bar Americain experience.

This is the ultimate grilled cheese. Forget about American cheese; this grown-up grilled cheese features the real deals. I love goat cheese, but you couldn’t do this sandwich without the cheddar; goat cheese can be too crumbly to melt well, and cheddar—beyond having great flavor—gets all nice and gooey when melted, bringing all of the tasty components together. Tart green tomatoes balance the salty bacon, which is a big part of what makes this sandwich so amazing. One final note: A key factor in making any grilled cheese is to be sure the bread is well toasted.

I first tasted Ralph Watterson’s Six Rivers Tuna last year when he and his group of bicycling buddies passed through Frederickburgs on a four-day cycling trip. His tuna provides hearty lunches for the group as they cover 300 miles and cross six rivers on their annual spring cycling trip. I asked for the recipe, which he described as his mother’s version, plus a few embellishments of his own. I made it, tried it out at the bakery, and our tuna sandwich sales skyrocketed. Ralph’s Six Rivers Tuna is now a part of our regular menu. Given its proven track record as a recipe that travels, I figured it would be great for an outdoor picnic or a potluck. On bike trips, Ralph says he often serves it with crackers. I wanted something more substantial and created a soft, honey-kissed roll that when split and filled with tuna makes a memorable and satisfying sandwich that travels with ease.

Some of my favorite sandwiches need very little prep work, just the right combination of top-notch ingredients. This is one of them. Dark bread, smoky fish, tart apple, and complex Gouda make magic together. All you have to do is slice, spread, cut, eat, and smile.

Shortly after the first time I went to Cork Wine Bar, a bustling neighborhood restaurant a few blocks from me in Washington, D.C., I started making one of their signature appetizers for dinner parties. It’s simply bruschetta with sliced avocado, crushed pistachios, a drizzle of pistachio oil, and a sprinkle of fleur de sel. It is rich and pretty perfect as an hors d’oeuvre. When I started making it for myself, it wasn’t quite doing the trick. I wanted a little protein on there, as well as something to cut the richness. A can of one of my favorite products, smoked oysters, was the answer, as were tart green olives. I like to pump up the smokiness even further by tossing the oysters with a little smoked paprika, but I’ll leave that up to you. With or without it, this appetizer has grown up into a meal.

This is not the tuna sandwich of your childhood, but it hits all the right notes: richness from the oily tuna, starchy goodness from the chickpeas, bitterness from the arugula, a little tang from the artichoke hearts, and a hell of a tang from the Herbed Lemon Confit (page 4). If you don’t have some of the latter in your refrigerator, store-bought preserved lemon slices will do.