The Epic Sandwich
Posted by Nirav | Filed under Food
The sandwich has been one of my favorite foods for as long as I can remember. Grilled-cheese made with plasticky Kraft Singles brings me straight back to elementary school, and lettuce-tomato-hard-boiled-egg sandwiches will remind me of last summer’s trip to Maine for quite some time.
It’s also probably one of the more perfect and versatile dishes out there: almost every ingredient is variable (and that’s not even talking about what to put on the side), and over the years, people all over the world have created everything from tiny snacks of cheese betweeen crackers (perhaps pushing the definition) to gigantic quadruple-decker monsters. (Here’s some history and more information about the sandwich on Wikipedia; quite interesting.)
Last Sunday, I went to Trader Joe’s (one of my few but severe financial weaknesses) and picked up ingredients to create an Epic Sandwich (among other things).
The key to a good sandwich is good bread, and as you can see on the bottom left corner of the picture, I picked up a loaf of freshly baked artisan bread. I also got portabella mushrooms (smaller, rounder ones this time; labeled as for-stuffing), onions, tomatoes (which are apparently salmonella-free again, but I got ones that were still on the vine just to be sure), sweet & spicy mustard, pepper jack cheese, and romaine lettuce salad. Oh, and some garlic-stuffed olives.
Back in my kitchen, I got all of my ingredients ready. I also got avacados at Trader Joe’s, but it turns out that the one that I cut open wasn’t ripe, so I had to toss that.
I then sautéed the onions in olive oil until they began to caramelize, and then I added in the mushrooms.
I ground plenty of black pepper on (as I am wont to do), let the mushrooms cook for a bit longer, and then emptied the pan. I then cut off a good-sized piece of bread and sliced it horizontally to make the top and bottom of my sandwich. I spread butter on the inside of the two halves, and put them, in turn, face down on the pan that I had used for the mushrooms and onions to crisp them.
I then started to assemble my Sandwich of Epicness: bread, mustard, two slices of pepper-jack cheese, a few slices of tomato, salt & pepper, romaine lettuce, a sprinkling of hot sauce, and finally, other bread.
Here’s the finished product, paired with chips, olives, and salt & pepper-topped tomato wedges:
And, more relevantly, here’s how it was eaten:
Zen.