Sandwich Ed Thread (Sandwich, Topping, and Recipe advice)

[opulentViolets]

Oh man I love me some tuna salad. Personally, I prefer freshly chopped dill pickles (the dill-ier the better!), but if you have homemade relish that probably beats the pants off *that* sort of thing. Generally, you want to pick spices that will compliment the flavor of the fish without overwhelming it. A few options:

1. Add season salt until you can just barely taste it. Finding a good brand can be hard, but remarkably I find that no-name/store brands can actually be superior.
2. Mixed pepper (though black pepper works fine if that's all you have). I really like those artsy-fartsy ones that have like six different colors of pepper in a little grinder, but again, up to you to find a good balance.
3. I like to add parsley, thyme, and rosemary as well, usually a little lighter on the thyme than the other two. Rosemary has a nice full warm flavor, and parsley is gentle but supportive.

Some other options can apply to the other areas of the sandwich: the bread, lettuce/greens, and (if you want it) cheese. For the bread, I love love love Milton's multigrain, but cracked wheat or oatmeal are also really nice. Potato bread is a little soft for tuna salad IMO, but I also love it to death so I might like it too (haven't had that yet, I don't think). For the greens: if you've never had it before, I STRONGLY recommend trying sprouts instead of lettuce. Getting a nice, slightly spicy sprout mix is GREAT for tuna salad, though regular ol' alfalfa sprouts are good too. Barring that, consider grabbing some kind of premade salad thinger with mixed lettuce types (radicchio, frisée, romaine, etc.)--the mixture of different plant flavors/bitterness will complement the sweetness of the bread and the savory/salty tuna salad.

Ooh! The sprout mix is an excellent idea! Personally, I really like to have dark rye bread with my tuna, but wheat bread is really good too. I might try and get some spicy mayo the next time I need some, or I suppose I could mix in a tiny bit of pepper. And now that I think about it, cucumber would be pretty good with tuna too! Fresh tomatoes are always a good option too, I suppose. C: I'll definitely give the pepper and the parsley, rosemary, and thyme a try as well.

[amiableTemplar]

Ooh! The sprout mix is an excellent idea! Personally, I really like to have dark rye bread with my tuna, but wheat bread is really good too. I might try and get some spicy mayo the next time I need some, or I suppose I could mix in a tiny bit of pepper. And now that I think about it, cucumber would be pretty good with tuna too! Fresh tomatoes are always a good option too, I suppose. C: I'll definitely give the pepper and the parsley, rosemary, and thyme a try as well.

...just as a note, I so wish I'd added sage to that. So then it could be parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme...

[C4Pottery]

I'm pretty fond of tuna salad sandwiches. My folks make homemade relish, and I usually mix that and some mayo together for it, but I've been thinking of possibly jazzing the tuna up a bit. Any recommendations? I've been thinking of throwing a bit of seasoning into the salad, but I'm considering adding other ingredients like celery or maybe something else.

Add sriracha hot sauce until the mixture is noticeably pinker. It adds a little kick that I find complements tuna salad well.

Alternately, finely diced apple and walnut works great in chicken salad, so maybe substitute sliced almonds and a little marmalade.

[amiableTemplar]

Add sriracha hot sauce until the mixture is noticeably pinker. It adds a little kick that I find complements tuna salad well.

Alternately, finely diced apple and walnut works great in chicken salad, so maybe substitute sliced almonds and a little marmalade.

Hmm. That sounds definitely worth a try. Alternatively, if marmalade is too sweet, you could consider adding lemon zest or something like it, or possibly dried cranberries.

[stupidjellyfish]

I just get lunch meat, pack 2 slices of each meat on some wheat bread, 1 slice of each cheese, then eat that shit like I'm in a famine. Nothing fancy, just simple. Tomatoes and lettuce are too dangerous to cut as my culinary skills are quite feeble.

[BowlArt]

Popping in to say that Fluffernutter is the shit. I prefer it on toasted white bread myself. Has anyone tried Fluff, peanut butter, AND jelly? How would that even work? Which two ingredients would be stacked on the same slice? I'd bank on the jelly being put on the Fluff with the peanut butter being all lonely, since it seems like it would be the best candidate to spread on something else. I've never tried this abomination myself, mostly because I'm not a fan of jelly, but has anyone else thought of this?

[C4Pottery]

okay, so trader joes sells this stuff called Cookie Butter, and it is awesome. it's like if someone took the process by which peanuts are turned into peanut butter and used it on ginger snaps. Good sandwich: white or wheat bread, peanut butter on one slice, cookie butter on the other, sliced almonds between.

Also, peanut butter on sourdough is awesome.

Another thing I've been doing lately is making different butters for toast in the morning. I've done honey butter and garlic butter so far, and I plan on doing a few more.

I can't remember if I've shared any of my excellent cream cheese spread or mayonnaise recipes here. If anyone wants some of those, I have loads.

[Nimz]

Mmmm, I have made another "that Nimz is crazy" sandwich.

1 yellow onion, chopped pretty fine
1/2 courgette (zucchini) from my parents' garden, sliced about 1/4" thick and the slices quartered
~1 tbsp of grapeseed oil
Probably about 1/8 cup of $2 Merlot (kinda just dolloped it in there without measuring)
A dash of sea salt (Trader Joe's)
1 bell pepper, chopped
3 eggs
4 slices of american cheese
A handful of frozen peas. Again, I did not precisely measure this.
And of course the two slices of bread. Unfortunately it's just pretty generic bread I have right now.

I "sauteed" the onion and zucc with the oil (not really a saute, as I had the fire on full blast) until nicely carmelised. Then I added in the wine. Then I realised I have bell peppers, so turned down the heat while I chopped one of those up. It was around this point I added the salt. Burned some of the pepper at high heat, and turned it down again to add in the eggs and cheese. At that point I realised I have frozen peas, so I added those in after the cheese had melted. Simmer a bit, plop it in between two slices of bread. The stuff between the bread looks pretty ugly, but it tastes pretty good.

[C4Pottery]

That sounds pretty tasty, Nimz. Cheap wine is great for cooking!

So I've been experimenting at work, and I've ended up with a delicious Chicken Curry Panini that I want to eat forever. I don't know the recipe for the curry, but it's basically a vietnamese curry sauce with chicken, red onion, and sumac. I let the ciabatta bread get crispy on the outside and soggy on the inside, and it's fantastic.

[Jonesie]

Well hey! This is certainly one mouthwatering thread I didn't think would be in the advice column. Some of these I'm definitely going to try, wow.

I have a sandwich inquiry for you guys, have you ever created some super great sandwiches with odd leftovers? I'm no sandwich master, but once I reheated some meatloaf, put it on some toasted sour dough bread, and topped it with gravy and a white cheese. I can't really remember the cheese, but I wish I did because it was so delicious. I'm going to try to remake it when my family gets in the mood of having meatloaf for dinner again... and when we have more sourdough. Which I hope is soon.

[Nimz]

Welcome to the thread, Jonesie!

Some fairly common white cheeses I can think of offhand are Mozzarella, Monterey Jack, Swiss, and Provalone. I'm guessing it's a relatively firm cheese, and not soft, like Ricotta, Cottage Cheese or even Brie. Those are just off the top of my head, so someone else can probably give you more names if I didn't hit on it already. Based on the other ingredients you listed, that order is from most likely to least likely, in my mind's tongue. Except I would put Brie as the most likely of the softer cheeses, though I would guess it's probably less common in a typical household...

But yeah, leftovers sandwiches can be very yummy. I like to think of making food as an adventure, where the treasure at the end of it all is whatever you happen to cobble together. Some treasures are more precious than others. >_>

[Meyanni]

So I had this insane sandwich yesterday. I was at my prestigious culinary school, and it was a freaking sandwich buffet. I went all out.

• Romaine
• Tomato
• Sauerkraut
• Pear halves
• Bleu cheese
• Swiss cheese
• Applewood bacon
• Sautéed onions
• Sour cream
• Dijon mustard
• Prime rib

All this on a nicely toasted ciabatta bun.

[C4Pottery]

Well hey! This is certainly one mouthwatering thread I didn't think would be in the advice column. Some of these I'm definitely going to try, wow.

I have a sandwich inquiry for you guys, have you ever created some super great sandwiches with odd leftovers? I'm no sandwich master, but once I reheated some meatloaf, put it on some toasted sour dough bread, and topped it with gravy and a white cheese. I can't really remember the cheese, but I wish I did because it was so delicious. I'm going to try to remake it when my family gets in the mood of having meatloaf for dinner again... and when we have more sourdough. Which I hope is soon.

Leftovers sandwiches rule (Bread, homemade pizza, pierogis, au gratin potatoes, bread).

Meyanni, if your culinary school is prestigious, we might go to the same one. I'm at NoVa, where do you go?

EDIT: So I got back into TF2.

[BowlArt]

Recently I've been having a lot of turkey sandwiches. Basically just a kaiser roll with a few slices of lunchmeat inside (I like my food to be pretty simple usually, and I don't like condiments, cheese, etc. in my sammiches), but it's pretty good. To put into perspective just how picky I am, I tired the same thing on a potato roll and on regular white bread, and both were exceedingly meh. I swear, I could eat nothing but kaiser rolls for months on end, they're so tasty.

[Kiwizoom]

Such delicatessens
Most of my sandwiches are kinda shit.
Except I like leftover meat cuts, like cold sausage with mustard, and chicken with lettuce, cheddar, parmesan and caesar dressing. Lawry salt is great on steak or chicken sandwiches, with a little mayo
Saurkraut is pretty awesome with a lot of meats, especially salty or treated, I could eat that stuff straight

[Maltor Drey]

What would you guys put on a MSPA sandwich? It can be anything, it doesn't even have to make much sense, so long as it's food of some kind.
Here is a list of what I can think of.

• Candy corn. Obviously.
• Pumpkin.
• Mustard.
• Ketchup.
• Peanut Butter and Jelly.
• The color red. Don't ask how, just do it.
• Orange creamsicles.
• Cotton Candy.
• Mayo(r).
• Fruit gushers.
• Cake.
• And wash it down with a nice cold Faygo/vanilla milkshake.

Yep. I will actually try and make a sandwich with everything suggested on it at some point. Kind of at a loss for what bread to use though.

EDIT:

• Eggs.
• Biscuits.
• Tootsie rolls.
• Gummy worms.
• Wax lips, Swedish fish, licorice Scotty dogs, etc.

[Nimz]

I can see why you would be at a loss for the bread - what pumpkin bread?

[Maltor Drey]

Brilliant.

My post was ridiculously silly, but I do want to try and make an actual sandwich that's representative of MSPA in some way.

[opulentViolets]

I tried basil with my tuna salad, and it turned out fantastic! Thanks for the suggestions.

On the subject of MSPA sandwiches, a while ago, I tried to make Homestuck themed sandwiches, sort of based off of what I think the characters would like on their sandwiches. It's kind of silly, but loads of fun! So far, I think my favorite is the lettuce + tuna salad + swiss cheese. (Inspired by Nepeta.)

[Grumblesaur]

Fried egg sandwich + cheese of your choice + a light sprinkle of Tabasco sauce.

[Nocturne]

For a long period of my childhood, I would get really hungry. My mother, bless her soul, stayed home and worked hard every day to prepare delicious meals for us to eat. But sometimes, my hunger could only be sated by a monstrosity. And so, the Sandwich Book was born.

Unfortunately, the Sandwich Book was lost when we moved a few years back.

So here are a few bastardized choice selections, as near as I can remember them.

The Meat Lovers'

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Ingredients:
2 slices bread, whole wheat
Butter
Ham, sliced
American cheese, sliced
Cheddar cheese, shredded
Roast beef
Pizza pepperoni, pre-sliced
Breakfast sausage, "link" style
Bacon

Construction:
Butter both pieces of bread to taste. Place shredded cheddar to taste on one piece and American cheese on the other. Place both pieces in oven heated to 250F for five minutes or until cheese is thoroughly melted.

While bread is baking, prepare sausage links and bacon according to directions on package. Slice sausage links in half, lengthways. At this point the bread should be done.

Carefully remove the pieces of bread, and then stack the meats as follows: layer of bacon, layer of pepperoni, breakfast sausages, ham, roast beef, bacon.

Put the sandwich back into the oven for about 90 seconds, then remove. Enjoy. Run six miles tomorrow and keep your heart healthy!

The Comte Monte Cristo (to be pronounced as fast as possible i.e. "comdemachrisso")

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Ingredients:
2 hot dogs, preferably all-beef
Butter
2 slices of white bread
Swiss cheese
Your favorite jelly

Construction:
Put a skillet on medium-high heat and coat lightly with butter. Slice the hot dogs lengthways and place them in the skillet to fry.

When hot dogs are fried on one side, flip them over and then place Swiss cheese liberally over hot dogs. Add a handful of water (alt: chicken stock) and cover skillet.

While hot dogs are steaming, apply jelly liberally to bread. Don't hold back. You're in this to win this.

Steam the hot dogs until the cheese is well-melted. Once cheese is well-melted, remove hot dogs and cheese from skillet and place onto bread. Close sandwich and enjoy.

The Paranoid Android
Great accompaniment for yet another listening to, and after 2005, watching of HHG2G on Boxing Day. Be sure to tell your dad that if he's going to make you listen to this stupid audiobook, or watch this stupid movie, he's gonna make you the damn sandwich.

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Ingredients:
Bread, whole wheat
Pure cinnamon
Marshmallow fluff
Ham, glazed (not cold cuts! I mean literally a spiral ham; perhaps what's left of one after a familial holiday feast)
Honey
Butter
Mashed potatoes

Construction:
Heavily butter and lightly honey one slice of bread. Apply marshmallow fluff and then a light dusting of cinnamon to the other. Place the sliced ham atop the honeyed bread, then coat ham with several millimeters of mashed potato. Quickly place marshmallow fluffed piece atop mashed potato, then eat. Best served with a tall glass of milk and potentially a pickle spear. Optionally, scatter sliced black olives atop the mashed potato. Share and Enjoy.

[deltron zero]

Hold on guys, whatever happened to the simple Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich? Where's the love for the classic BLT?

There is one that I eat that should have killed me long ago, It's the Maria Special, and it consists of: Toasted white bread, 2 slices of ham, 1 fried hashbrown patty, one slice of American cheese, and one egg over easy. Although a fair warning, eat at your own risk.

[glub]

Lunch today (ie, what a uni student eats when the pantry desperately needs restocking): One sliced, toasted cinnamon-raisin bagel. Slather with cream cheese and pumpkin butter. Drizzle with honey.

The Paranoid Android
Great accompaniment for yet another listening to, and after 2005, watching of HHG2G on Boxing Day. Be sure to tell your dad that if he's going to make you listen to this stupid audiobook, or watch this stupid movie, he's gonna make you the damn sandwich.
Ingredients:
Bread, whole wheat
Pure cinnamon
Marshmallow fluff
Ham, glazed (not cold cuts! I mean literally a spiral ham; perhaps what's left of one after a familial holiday feast)
Honey
Butter
Mashed potatoes

Construction:
Heavily butter and lightly honey one slice of bread. Apply marshmallow fluff and then a light dusting of cinnamon to the other. Place the sliced ham atop the honeyed bread, then coat ham with several millimeters of mashed potato. Quickly place marshmallow fluffed piece atop mashed potato, then eat. Best served with a tall glass of milk and potentially a pickle spear. Optionally, scatter sliced black olives atop the mashed potato. Share and Enjoy.

Dear gracious yes. Don't care much for pickles, but the olives sound like they'd add a marvellous dimension. I am singularly excited for Thanksgiving for the prospect of day-after leftover sandwiches stuffed with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes. Delightful, sinful carbohydrates.

Hold on guys, whatever happened to the simple Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich? Where's the love for the classic BLT?

You say that as if we're incapable of liking the staples! I personally dive into a foot-long BLT sub weekly and enjoy a turkey-Swiss-honey mustard sandwich whenever I can come by the materials. A healthy appreciation for the fundamentally good sandwiches is (hopefully!) implied in this thread.

[deltron zero]

Mkay, then if that is the case, I only have one more question. Where did you get that pumpkin butter, and how do I get my hands on some!?!

Also, I remembered another recipe for an easy and delicious breakfast sandwich. You will need:
- 1 Sausage
- 1 Egg
- 1 Strip of Bacon (optional)
- 1 Slice of Swiss Cheese
- 2 Slices of Bread of your choosing
- Butter

First you slice the sausage in half long-wise, then you chop that up into little chunks. If you opt for it, slice the bacon the same way and throw it all into the pan without oil (if you only use sausage, throw in some oil beforehand). Let sausage cook to your preference while stirring to avoid burning (if you used bacon, you might want to drain the excess fat from the pan before continuing), then, without removing from the heat, add the egg. Stir the mixture to thoroughly cook/scramble egg into the mixture, and add a little bit of salt for taste. Toast and butter bread, serve egg and sausage mixture onto one slice, cover with Swiss cheese, and enjoy.

EDIT: You can multiply this recipe for multiple sandwiches (just make sure you have a big enough pan).

EDIT COMBO X2!: And I'm not sure if you all know this, but it turns out there are ways to enjoy even the shittiest of fast food! That's right, I'm including my 'poor and lazy' recipe for all you people who occasionally drop by McDonalds. You order 1 McDouble, and 1 Spicy McChicken; take Mcdouble, and split in half, with one patty on each side. Then, take the Spicy chicken, and place directly in between both halves. And there you have it, the delicious and cheap McBitchin'! Goes best with their Honey Mustard, but those assholes have started charging for the stuff now, so it's pretty lame.

EDIT COMBO X3! (Because all this sandwich talk has me remembering): My normal sandwich consists of Turkey slices, sliced Jalapeno (pickled of course), and Sliced Tomato, under Swiss cheese. I hate mayo though, so I never use it in any of my sandwiches. For added tastiness, substitute the Swiss cheese with fresh Pepperjack, it adds a kick to the creaminess and complements the tomato quite well.

[glub]

Where did you get that pumpkin butter, and how do I get my hands on some!?!

Live near a Trader Joe's? Them goods be divine. (I've also heard -and smelled- that TJ's sells a heavenly vanilla-cinnamon-nutmeg tea blend around the winter hols but that's a tangent.)

Opening the day with a sandwich is one of the best ways to do it. A firm tip of the hat to you! I also agree with your turkey sandwich recipe - I add spiciness indiscriminately, so jalapenos end up in all sandwiches whenever available. Don't often stray from turkey with Swiss for my meat-cheese combination, though mostly because I've never thought of doing it. Will try to remember substituting pepper jack next time!


Weirdest sandwich I've had in the last two weeks: Plain bagel (untoasted), two slices of turkey, and cream cheese. The cream cheese was dyed blue, and stained the turkey and top bagel layer.
Goddamn trumpet players.