How to make sandwiches with swagger
Crafting the perfect everyday meal
11/29/11
mmm...Sandwich. Photo by Hanss Lujan (The Phoenix)
“Sandwiches are beautiful, sandwiches are fine, I love sandwiches I eat them all the time.” Whoever wrote those legendary lyrics had one thing straight: A well-rounded, easy to eat, and delicious sandwich is a tasty alternative to any kind of other meal ever made ever. However, not all sandwiches are created equal (and I’m not talking about how they’re sliced, either.) In this article, I’ll aim to direct you towards crafting the most swaggerifically mouth-watering sandwich, that you can eat over, and over, and over again.
When making a sandwich, the most important thing to keep in mind is this. If, at any point in time, you feel like you are working hard at making the sandwich, YOU ARE LOSING THE BATTLE. Sandwiches are the ultimate lazy person food, very little physical work needs to be put into a sensational creation.
I break down the main ingredients of a sandwich into five major categories: Bread, Meat, Cheese, Vegetables, and Sauce. The general order of a well made sandwich is simple: Bread, sauce, meat, cheese, vegetables.
Since you should never have to work at a sandwich, including finding the perfect components, I’ll list suitable alternatives and the best possible ingredient, in my humble sandwich wizard opinion.
BREAD
The foundation of the sandwich, bread is the unsung hero of the sandwich. So little credit is given to the processed grains used to hold your tempting morsel together, but good bread choice can make or break your lunch break.
For those fans of symmetry out there, there are some excellent slices of quality brands of bread. Typically though, your bread basket will feature little more than white or whole wheat. While health gurus worldwide will probably tell you that whole wheat is better for you, don’t let that push you away from white, the taste of which is easily worth another few seconds on that treadmill every time.
Of course, this wouldn’t belong the arts section of the paper if I didn’t recommend that you be experimental and venture outside of the world of bread and into buns. Bagels are a solid choice but tend to leave much to be desired in their centres. Standard hamburger buns are best suited to burgers (which are COMPLETELY different from sandwiches, I assure you.) My pick for bread is the slightly larger bun, a soft variation, very fluffy on the inside with decent hold to the outside. Talk to your baker if you don’t understand.
You’ll also want to very lightly toast whatever it is you’re using for the surface, and if you can set your toaster to the bagel setting, go for it. Either way, keep a hawk eye on that shit because burnt toast makes everything taste like burnt toast.
SAUCE
Sauce is next. This section is almost entirely up to personal preference, however there are some laws to remember when saucing your sandwich.
You want a sandwich to be somewhat moist and easy to consume, and sauce does a lot of that work for you. This is one of the reasons we dip cookies in milk, because it’s less work to eat the cookie afterwards. With that in mind, be somewhat liberal with sauce application, but restrain yourself if you’re dealing with more than a couple of flavours. Too much and you have a mess that gets everywhere and fucks with your tongue, and if you wanted that, you should have ordered the hot wing surprise, my friend.
Try to match up your taste experiences with sauces. I like a nice mustard, Dijon optional, to go with my meat, and standard miracle whip mayo to go with my veggies. Good alternatives include Ranch for high vegetables, ketchup if there’s beef, double mustard for high meat content.
MEAT
Meat is the superstar of the sandwich lineup, the lead singer of the band, for sure. Meat choice can be limited by circumstance, but generally if it’s pre-cooked, flat, and meaty, it’ll do.
You always want to try and get thinly sliced meat, if you can, and match up the size of the slices with the width of your chosen bread (this is why we deal with bread first!) Meat sliced too thick will result in uncompromising differences between length of meat and bread, which is expected to an extent but can get problematic. Layering requires modesty but hunger. Don’t work at eating it, but get your fill!
For the above reasons, I’m partial to thinly sliced smoked turkey breast, fresh from the butcher, two layers. However my meat palette is fairly varied, including smoked ham, salami, chicken, bologna, beer sausage, pastrami, salmon, halibut, roast beef, ground beef (mind the mess), and even well-placed hot dogs. Meat combos are possible but largely not recommended.
CHEESE
Warning: the following may be disturbing to readers who are lactose intolerant. Discretion is advised.
Cheese of nearly every kind kicks so much ass, it’s really hard to go wrong. A general word of advice, if you read the label and have never heard of it before, try it, but try it BEFORE you defile the sandwich with its potentially destructive taste. No, everything else will not make it taste better.
Slicing and placing cheese is crucial. If you have a cheese slicer (slicer, not grater), bust that shit out and you will have some nice melt-in your mouth thin slices of perfectly placeable cheese. If you have to use a cumbersome knife, try to get the slices nice and thin, and make sure to adjust for width and length of bread, roughly of course. You want your cheese to rest on top of the meat like a delicate hat and then become crushed into place by the weight of the vegetables.
My preferred cheeses are cheddar, gouda, and pepper jack.
VEGETABLES
The most controversial of the sandwich food groups, the vegetables are probably the healthiest but least tasty ingredient, except in certain scenarios. Learning how to get the most out of your vegetables is a very important skill for a sandwich wizard.
For flavour, peppers of various assortments and names get the job done, though some can be rather spicy. For a nice moisture but a bit of a mess one might turn to tomatoes. Olives are a solid option provided their middles are removed and they are coherent with the taste buds, pickles are a bit of a blend of olives and tomatoes.
I find just plain old lettuce or spinach very difficult to contend with, though, because they fit so well into the flat sandwich structure, they’re crisp and refreshing, and they mesh well with cheese and mayonnaise.
So there you have it! The know-how and the know-what for all you need-to-know about how to build a sandwich that will entertain your taste buds.
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