Summer is sandwich season. When warm weather beckons us outside, it’s not the time to fuss with elaborate meals that keep us in the kitchen.
Fortunately, sandwiches can be filling enough for lunch or dinner, and are appropriate for a daily meal or an occasion as celebratory as Father’s Day, which is coming up on Sunday.
They are also fun to make, the ultimate non- recipe dish that lets your creative instincts run wild. You may like roast beef and Swiss cheese with mustard on rye bread or egg salad with jalapeno mayo on multi-grain bread. You may have a yen for grilled eggplant, mushrooms and tahini sauce in a pita pocket. Or turkey, avocado, bacon and pesto sauce in a burrito.
You can have it your way. That’s what a good sandwich is all about.
Although a sandwich is relatively easy to make, there’s a lot to think about if you want it to be more than mundane. And while it is meant to be a casual dish, constructing a good sandwich should be more than a slapdash layering of this and that without any thought to the components.
Consider the bread. With so many varieties available these days, there are delicious options for pairing with filling. The right bread can make all the difference. If there’s a sauce or plentiful amounts of moist ingredients (sauerkraut, tomatoes), for example, you need bread that won’t become soggy. BLTs usually come on toasted bread, which can absorb the juices and mayonnaise. Gyros are packed into pita pockets so there’s room for the yogurt dressing. Hot dogs sit well within the bun to leave room for one or more toppings.
But bread is more than just a handy container. A flavorful slice — multi-grain or pumpernickel, for example — also gives character to bland ingredients, such as boiled ham or sliced chicken breast.
And the opposite is also true. Mild bread — a hamburger bun — doesn’t detract from the taste of robust foods such as grilled meat, tangy ketchup, a fierce blast of onion and a couple of pickle slices.
Bread provides texture contrasts too. Think of a Cubano, with its soft meats and oozy cheese on a crusty, grilled Portuguese roll.
As for the sandwich filling, practically anything goes. With soft-shell crab now in season, for instance, why not take advantage? You can fry them crispy (or grill them) and tuck them inside a ciabatta roll slathered with lemon-infused mayonnaise. And now that our outdoor grills have been readied for the season, you can grill bell peppers, onions and Portobello mushrooms and tuck them inside French bread; add some feta cheese to give the sandwich more substance; dress it with an herbal mayonnaise (basil or mint plus dill) to give it some character.
We’re all familiar with tuna fish sandwiches, ham and cheese, cream cheese and jelly and chicken salad sandwiches. Even these old fashioned favorites can be embellished to make them more interesting. Give the tuna some personality by adding fresh ginger, or chopped red onion and capers, or make it tuna “Nicoise” salad by adding tangy black olives, anchovies, diced cucumber and hard-cooked egg. Great on French bread.
Use Camembert instead of Swiss cheese on the ham sandwich and serve it on a baguette instead of rye bread. Or top ham and Swiss cheese with sauerkraut and a few caraway seeds.
Make the cream cheese and jelly with pepper-jelly, or skip the jelly and use fruit and nuts (sliced peaches and chopped smokehouse almonds) or switch to goat cheese and pair it with fig, strawberry or guava jam. A hearty white bread would be fine here.
There’s lots you can do with chicken salad: add cashew nuts and raisins and season the mayonnaise with curry powder. Or serve it inside a burrito, slathered with guacamole. Add seedless red grapes, dress it with lemon-tarragon dressing and stuff it into a croissant.
While the best sandwiches have ingredients that make sense together and bread that’s suitable, one of the most famous sandwiches of all time is a jumble of disparate leftovers piled on between bread slices.
The charming Dagwood may endure if only because it is such a complete hodgepodge. The original sandwich, described in the comic strip “Blondie” back in the 1930s, was a mountain of ham, cheese and onions, pineapple, sausage and sardines.
Over the years Blondie’s husband, Dagwood, would be seen raiding the fridge for leftovers and the meaning of the sandwich expanded.
Different versions included leftover spaghetti, cooked lobster and meatballs. There never was a real recipe, but a true Dagwood sandwich usually has some deli meat and is typically garnished with a skewer of pickle, olive and a small pepper. If you’re hankering for a sandwich and like the freestyle approach, a Dagwood’s for you. Have it your way or use the recipe here.
Dagwood
Makes 4 servings.
Ingredients
1/3 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons deli mustard
8 slices whole wheat, multi-grain or home-style white bread
4 lettuce leaves
8 ounces sliced turkey breast
8 ounces bologna
2 tins skinless, boneless sardines
1/4 pound Swiss cheese
1/4 pound provolone cheese
1 tomato, sliced
4 slices Vidalia or red onion
8 large pitted green olives
8 small cherry peppers
Some 1/2-inch pickle slices
8 skewers or toothpicks
Directions
Mix the mayonnaise and mustard together and spread on one side of each slice of bread. Place a lettuce leaf on each of four slices. Layer the turkey, bologna, sardines, Swiss cheese, provolone cheese, tomato and onion on top. Cover with the remaining four bread slices. Cut the sandwiches in half. Skewer one olive, pepper and pickle slice on each of the skewers. Plunge into each sandwich half and serve. Makes 4 servings.
Cubano
Makes 4 sandwiches.
4 ciabatta or Portuguese rolls
2 tablespoons softened butter
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
1/4 pound thinly sliced ham
1/4 pound thinly sliced roast pork or roast fresh ham
1/4 pound Swiss or provolone cheese
Several thin slices of dill pickle
Extra-virgin olive oil, if needed
Directions
Slice the rolls in half. Spread equal amounts of the butter on one side of each roll, the mustard on the other side. Layer the ham, pork, cheese and pickle on top of the buttered pieces. Top with the mustard-covered pieces. Cook in a panini grill or sandwich grill. Or, heat a nonstick saute pan over medium heat. Brush the surface with a small amount of olive oil. Arrange the sandwiches inside the pan and place another pan on top. Weight the pan with canned goods. Cook the sandwiches, turning once, for 5 to 6 minutes or until crispy on both sides.
Turkey Avocado Sandwich With Jalapeño Mayonnaise
Makes 4 sandwiches.
Ingredients
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons finely chopped jalapeño pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro, optional
8 slices whole-wheat bread
12-16 ounces turkey
16 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped
1 ripe avocado, peeled and sliced
Directions
In a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise, jalapeno pepper, lemon juice and optional cilantro and spread this mixture on one side of each of the bread slices. Top with equal amounts of turkey, sun-dried tomatoes and avocado slices. Cover with the remaining bread.
Ronnie Fein is a cookbook author and cooking teacher in Stamford, Conn. Visit her food blog, Kitchen Vignettes, at .
