Sandwich

One of my go-to sandwiches in Washington, D.C., is the chicken cutlet at Taylor Gourmet, where the owners hail from Philadelphia and the sandwiches are all homages to the way things are done in the City of Brotherly Love. Their sandwiches are studies in simplicity: not too many ingredients, but they’re high-quality ones, treated well. I love their combination of crunchy chicken, bitter and spicy broccoli rabe, and slightly melting provolone. But at home I like to jazz things up by adding a mayonnaise spiked with peppadews, those miniature red peppers from South Africa that are pickled to sweet-and-sour perfection. If you can’t find them, substitute your favorite bread-and-butter pickle

If you think this sounds something like a reconstructed salade Niçoise on bread, well, you’d be right, but the truth is, I got the idea in Italy, not France. On my first trip there, in Venice, I quickly became addicted to eating while standing up at one of the city’s many bars. Besides melanzana (eggplant) pizza, my favorite dish was a sandwich that seemed the ultimate in decadence, because it consisted of potato salad on one side and tuna salad on the other. When I started making it for myself, it seemed only natural to combine both salads into one, and then to throw a hard-cooked egg in there (who doesn’t like egg salad, after all?), along with a couple of olives for briny tartness.

The ginger packs a double-edged spicy punch in this sandwich, as fresh pieces in the chicken-poaching liquid and in powdered form in the avocado spread. Mango adds its sweet-tart, cooling magic.

Besides the Cochinita Pibil Tacos (page 95), this is the purest, least messed-with application of leftover Yucatan-Style Slow-Roasted Pork (page 66). In a riff on the North Carolina tradition of pork with a tangy coleslaw, I’m using green mango, which sounds exotic until you realize that it’s just . . . green mango. Unripe, firm, not-yet-ready-for-prime-time mango. It’s super sour, which is one of the reasons I like it. The other is that, depending on your supermarket, it might be even easier to find unripe mango than ripe mango. Of course, one turns into the other if you wait long enough.

Mushrooms, noble as they may be, are not proud creatures. Poking their heads up from the loam, they stand humbly with a prepossessing calm that more or less begs us to pluck them. Fresh eggs, once you face off the fierce gaze of the hen and pull them from under her warm breast, are similarly good-natured, understated and half-smiling like the oval face of a Modigliani portrait. But dress the egg and the mushroom with a pinch of black truffle and the two rise up, swell with pride, and regale you with their tales of farm and forest.

Have you ever had a turkey croissandwich on an airplane, or in a country club, or at a catered corporate event? The ones made with mass-produced croissants and stuffed with turkey cut in half? We always want to like them, but they’re always so disappointing. So we came up with one we love. The mustard croissant is very similar to the kimchi croissant in technique, but it is stuffed with meat, cheese, and condiments instead of blue cheese. You can substitute your favorite meat-and-cheese sandwich combo, if you prefer, for the turkey and Swiss.

At Marination they dress the SPAM sliders with their signature “nunya sauce” and slaw with a pickled ginger vinaigrette.

Two keys to a great roast beef sandwich are rare roast beef and good, crunchy, warm sourdough bread. We added some spicy horseradish cream to give it a kick.

This dish can be served as a sandwich filling or as a stand-alone salad accompanied by favorite lettuces and veggies. We use canned tuna packed in spring water because it’s lighter than tuna packed in oil, and we make sure the apple is tart and crisp. Granny Smith apples are fine, but also Mutsu, Honeycrisp, or any good local crispy, tart apple will do. Add half the dressing at first and see if you need more—it’s up to you how well coated you want the tuna and apples to be.

This is a real deli-lovers sandwich, topped with Emmenthaler, which is a good sharp Swiss cheese. You’ll have enough Russian dressing for six sandwiches; you can keep the extra for a week in the refrigerator.

Tart apple, smoky bacon, and rich Cheddar cheese all come together for a flavorful autumnal treat with this unique sandwich. Certain elements of this sandwich should be thick—the bacon and the bread—and others should be thin—the apple and the Cheddar. Use a crisp, tart apple such as Granny Smith, Mutsu, or Honeycrisp. Use the best bacon you can find as well. I like to make this sandwich in a cast-iron skillet because it makes for a uniformly deep golden crust, which I cherish above all else in a grilled sandwich.

This classic sandwich relies on good ripe tomatoes, thickly sliced bacon, and top-quality crusty bread. Although you might normally shun iceberg lettuce, this is one instance where its crunchiness is welcome. Feel free, of course, to substitute another lettuce such as romaine.