![]() Your eyes tell you that you are eating corned beef, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut, but your tongue tells you it is Russian dressing all the way. To my palate, the mayo-ketchup mixture blows out all the other flavors in the sandwich. I have never understood why people put Russian dressing on Reubens. I next decided to make a Reuben sandwich my way, which is to say without Russian dressing. It is so good that the restaurant that created it, ‘Wichcraft in New York, had to stop selling it because it was too popular and took too long to make, creating a backlog in the kitchen. Yet the sandwich is so brilliantly balanced, so deeply satisfying to the soul, that it is another confirmation of the adage that is so often true, that the more effort that goes into cooking a dish, the better it tastes. Not only is the flank steak braised in red wine for 21 / 2 hours, red peppers have to be roasted – you could use red peppers out of a jar, but it won’t taste as good – and red onions are grilled in a skillet before you can even begin to assemble the sandwich. The name of the next sandwich I made gives an indication of what it entails: Red Wine-Braised Flank Steak With Roasted Peppers, Onions and Gruyère. And the crunchy bits only make it that much better. Spicy, salty kimchi, with that unmistakable funk that only comes from the Korean red pepper called gochugaru, turns out to be the perfect foil for the robust richness of sharp cheddar cheese. It is a grilled cheese sandwich with finely chopped kimchi in the middle, and additional bits of crunchy cheese on one side. But the idea is, as Oliver would say, brilliant. Yes, the name is a little cheesy, itself. Much easier to make, and every bit as intriguing, was a sandwich created by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, Cheesy Kimchi Toastie. The sandwich was simply spectacular, as good as the famous version served at Popeye’s. ![]() The pickles, I am happy to report, were key. The pickles are apparently very important. When I was ready to cook, I breaded them in a mixture of flour, cayenne pepper, salt and garlic and onion powders, so both the breasts and the fried breading would be highly flavored.Ī little internet research revealed that Popeye’s serves theirs with spiced mayonnaise on a brioche bun, with lettuce, tomato and pickles. I began by marinating chicken breasts overnight in a buttermilk brine flavored with a bit of paprika, garlic powder and onion powder. Some were relatively easy some took more time and effort, some were decidedly fancy. So I definitely intentionally set out to make six hot sandwiches, each unusual in its own way. Hillary the photographer: “Hey, all of these are hot sandwiches.” ![]() I’d like to say that was my original intention, but actually the truth of it came to me like this: All of them were hot sandwiches – that is, each one had to be heated before it was ready to be eaten. I spent a lot of time standing in front of my sink the other day when I made six types of sandwiches. To me, paper plates are almost no better for sandwiches than china plates, which are practically like eating them with knives and forks. It is a debate that has been passionately argued by culinary philosophers for centuries: Do sandwiches taste better when eaten standing over the kitchen sink, or when they are picked up from a paper plate? ![]()
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