Flashback Friday - Sammiches

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on April 16, 2013.
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Cajun Kate's softshell crab po boy, image from egullet.com user philadining

Last Friday they were discussing sandwiches on WYPR's Midday with Dan Rodricks and it got me thinking about sandwiches I have known. I put in my two cents by recommending the po' boys from my friend Don's restaurant Cajun Kate's in the Booth's Corner Farmers' Market in Boothwyn, PA, because it's one of my current favorites (especially the brisket, fried oyster, and soft shell crab versions), but that's not the only sandwich that has struck my fancy over the years.

When I was quite young, my maternal grandmother had a stroke. During her recovery, we ate lunch together every day, and every day it was the same thing - an imported deli ham sandwich with iceberg lettuce and Kraft thousand island dressing on seeded rye bread from Levin's bakery, with a side of Funyuns. I don't know the origin of the sandwich, but I suspect it was my mother's invention, as I have never seen it elsewhere. Occasionally, when I'm feeling particularly nostalgic, I have a ham on rye with lettuce and thousand island for lunch. It never fails to take me back to age 3, when being cute and entertaining came far more easily.

Another sandwich I enjoyed in my youth, but not nearly as often, is the Baltimore classic, pit beef. It seemed that I only ate them in the first weekend of October, when the Fells Point Festival was in full swing. We lived on the 500 block of Ann Street at the time. Dad and I always walked down together in search of a pit beef sandwich, which Dad would order well-done, with burnt ends,  to which we'd add mayonnaise and enough horseradish to make our noses run. Oddly, we always had to share the sandwich (Dad's rule, not mine), so I tend to feel a little greedy that now, as an adult, I get to have my own.

When I like something a lot, I try to eat it often, but not often enough to tire of it. Back in the heyday of Harborplace, there was a little Greek stand on the second floor of the Light Street pavilion. After a morning of desultorily shuffling from shop to shop with my college buddies Leslie and Wanda, we'd occasionally grab lunch there. My personal favorite was a veggie pita, basically a gyro without the meat. If I remember correctly, a warm and fluffy Greek pita was piled high with a combo of lettuce, tomato, raw onion, and cucumber and glopped with tzatziki and feta before being wrapped in aluminum foil to make the messy sandwich easier to handle. So simple, but so good, and something I could eat once a week without getting bored.

I'm also quite fond of a good chicken salad sandwich, and by "good," I mean chicken salad made with a mix of white and dark meat, chopped into fairly small pieces, a generous but not overwhelming amount of mayonnaise, and bits of minced onion. The seasoning can be simple salt and pepper, or something fancier like curry powder and mango chutney. The bread can be rye or a nice artisan loaf. Chicken salad sandwiches I am currently fond of include, believe it or not, the ones found at the University of Maryland Medical Center's Aramark-run cafeteria. The sandwich ladies are not skimpy with the scoops of salad, and they carefully remove the tough part of whole romaine leaves before arranging them carefully on your sandwich. And it's a steal at about $4. Mary Mervis, in the Lexington Market, also makes a fine chicken salad sammie. I like to make it a Chicken Smith by requesting a salty addition of a slice of Smithfield ham. This sometimes confuses the sandwich makers, so tell them to slice and weigh the ham and add the price to the sandwich.

Oh, there are so many more I can mention here: the asparagus and goat cheese wrap from the SouperFreak food truck, any number of tasty grilled cheeses (love the Fresco at Grilled Cheese & Co.), Attman's corned beef! and let's not forget Maryland's potential state sandwich - the soft shell crab. And burgers - but they're a completely different post....

What are your favorite sandwiches?

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - Sammiches

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on April 16, 2013.

Cajun Kate's softshell crab po boy, image from egullet.com user philadining

Last Friday they were discussing sandwiches on WYPR's Midday with Dan Rodricks and it got me thinking about sandwiches I have known. I put in my two cents by recommending the po' boys from my friend Don's restaurant Cajun Kate's in the Booth's Corner Farmers' Market in Boothwyn, PA, because it's one of my current favorites (especially the brisket, fried oyster, and soft shell crab versions), but that's not the only sandwich that has struck my fancy over the years.

When I was quite young, my maternal grandmother had a stroke. During her recovery, we ate lunch together every day, and every day it was the same thing - an imported deli ham sandwich with iceberg lettuce and Kraft thousand island dressing on seeded rye bread from Levin's bakery, with a side of Funyuns. I don't know the origin of the sandwich, but I suspect it was my mother's invention, as I have never seen it elsewhere. Occasionally, when I'm feeling particularly nostalgic, I have a ham on rye with lettuce and thousand island for lunch. It never fails to take me back to age 3, when being cute and entertaining came far more easily.

Another sandwich I enjoyed in my youth, but not nearly as often, is the Baltimore classic, pit beef. It seemed that I only ate them in the first weekend of October, when the Fells Point Festival was in full swing. We lived on the 500 block of Ann Street at the time. Dad and I always walked down together in search of a pit beef sandwich, which Dad would order well-done, with burnt ends,  to which we'd add mayonnaise and enough horseradish to make our noses run. Oddly, we always had to share the sandwich (Dad's rule, not mine), so I tend to feel a little greedy that now, as an adult, I get to have my own.

When I like something a lot, I try to eat it often, but not often enough to tire of it. Back in the heyday of Harborplace, there was a little Greek stand on the second floor of the Light Street pavilion. After a morning of desultorily shuffling from shop to shop with my college buddies Leslie and Wanda, we'd occasionally grab lunch there. My personal favorite was a veggie pita, basically a gyro without the meat. If I remember correctly, a warm and fluffy Greek pita was piled high with a combo of lettuce, tomato, raw onion, and cucumber and glopped with tzatziki and feta before being wrapped in aluminum foil to make the messy sandwich easier to handle. So simple, but so good, and something I could eat once a week without getting bored.

I'm also quite fond of a good chicken salad sandwich, and by "good," I mean chicken salad made with a mix of white and dark meat, chopped into fairly small pieces, a generous but not overwhelming amount of mayonnaise, and bits of minced onion. The seasoning can be simple salt and pepper, or something fancier like curry powder and mango chutney. The bread can be rye or a nice artisan loaf. Chicken salad sandwiches I am currently fond of include, believe it or not, the ones found at the University of Maryland Medical Center's Aramark-run cafeteria. The sandwich ladies are not skimpy with the scoops of salad, and they carefully remove the tough part of whole romaine leaves before arranging them carefully on your sandwich. And it's a steal at about $4. Mary Mervis, in the Lexington Market, also makes a fine chicken salad sammie. I like to make it a Chicken Smith by requesting a salty addition of a slice of Smithfield ham. This sometimes confuses the sandwich makers, so tell them to slice and weigh the ham and add the price to the sandwich.

Oh, there are so many more I can mention here: the asparagus and goat cheese wrap from the SouperFreak food truck, any number of tasty grilled cheeses (love the Fresco at Grilled Cheese & Co.), Attman's corned beef! and let's not forget Maryland's potential state sandwich - the soft shell crab. And burgers - but they're a completely different post....

What are your favorite sandwiches?

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Savory Sweet Potato Biscones and Pimento Cheese

A recent delivery from our produce delivery service (it's not really a CSA, so I shouldn't call it that) left us with three mammoth sweet potatoes. Mr Minx isn't really a fan of the tuber, so I have to find creative ways to use them up. My sweet potato spaetzle were a hit, as was the super-moist sweet potato snack cake. He even enjoyed the sweet potato and black-eyed pea hummus I made a couple years back, and he's not a fan of the beans, either. This time, I decided to try sweet potato biscuits or scones, something that I could use as a sandwich bread.

I definitely didn't want the scones to be sweet, so didn't use any sugar. Instead, I leaned heavily toward the savory spectrum by adding chopped scallions and jalapeno pepper.

Ham biscuits are a classic, but I find that some biscuits are just too thick and dense to wrap around meat and cheese. Plus, they usually crumble into chunks after a few bites. I made mine thinner and somewhat lighter. They are somewhere between a biscuit and a scone, a biscone, and are easily fork split to accommodate a filling.

My filling of choice was pimento cheese and ham. Or more accurately, Canadian bacon. The rounds of bacon were the perfect size for the biscones, and matched nicely with the savory cheese topping.

Sweet Potato Biscones with Pimento Cheese

For the biscones:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons baking powder
5 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup cold mashed sweet potato
1/2 cup milk
2 scallions, minced finely
1 jalapeno pepper, minced

For the pimento cheese:
4 ounces of extra sharp cheddar cheese
Scant 1/4 cup mayonnaise (I used Duke's)
1 tablespoon minced jalapeno pepper
2 tablespoons chopped roasted red pepper

Canadian bacon or ham, optional

Make the biscones: Preheat oven to 425°F.

Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl. Rub the butter in with your fingers until the flour looks like coarse meal. Combine the sweet potato and milk and stir into the flour mixture until mostly combined; then add the scallions and jalapeno and mix until completely combined and veg are fairly evenly distributed.

Flour your hands and pat dough out to about 1/2" thick on a flour-coated board. Use a floured glass or biscuit cutter to cut out rounds. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 12-16 biscones, depending on how big a cutter you use.

Make the pimento cheese: Grate the cheddar into a bowl. Stir in the mayo and peppers. Beat well with a fork until the cheese starts to break apart and integrate with the mayo. (You could also whiz it in a food processor, but I didn't think it was worth dragging it out and getting it dirty for such a small amount.) Refrigerate until ready to use.

Fork split the biscones, smear with pimento cheese and top with a slice or two of Canadian bacon. Sliced tomato is nice, too. Eat.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Sammiches

Cajun Kate's softshell crab po boy, image from egullet.com user philadining

Last Friday they were discussing sandwiches on WYPR's Midday with Dan Rodricks and it got me thinking about sandwiches I have known. I put in my two cents by recommending the po' boys from my friend Don's restaurant Cajun Kate's in the Booth's Corner Farmers' Market in Boothwyn, PA, because it's one of my current favorites (especially the brisket, fried oyster, and soft shell crab versions), but that's not the only sandwich that has struck my fancy over the years.

When I was quite young, my maternal grandmother had a stroke. During her recovery, we ate lunch together every day, and every day it was the same thing - an imported deli ham sandwich with iceberg lettuce and Kraft thousand island dressing on seeded rye bread from Levin's bakery, with a side of Funyuns. I don't know the origin of the sandwich, but I suspect it was my mother's invention, as I have never seen it elsewhere. Occasionally, when I'm feeling particularly nostalgic, I have a ham on rye with lettuce and thousand island for lunch. It never fails to take me back to age 3, when being cute and entertaining came far more easily.

Another sandwich I enjoyed in my youth, but not nearly as often, is the Baltimore classic, pit beef. It seemed that I only ate them in the first weekend of October, when the Fells Point Festival was in full swing. We lived on the 500 block of Ann Street at the time. Dad and I always walked down together in search of a pit beef sandwich, which Dad would order well-done, with burnt ends,  to which we'd add mayonnaise and enough horseradish to make our noses run. Oddly, we always had to share the sandwich (Dad's rule, not mine), so I tend to feel a little greedy that now, as an adult, I get to have my own.

When I like something a lot, I try to eat it often, but not often enough to tire of it. Back in the heyday of Harborplace, there was a little Greek stand on the second floor of the Light Street pavilion. After a morning of desultorily shuffling from shop to shop with my college buddies Leslie and Wanda, we'd occasionally grab lunch there. My personal favorite was a veggie pita, basically a gyro without the meat. If I remember correctly, a warm and fluffy Greek pita was piled high with a combo of lettuce, tomato, raw onion, and cucumber and glopped with tzatziki and feta before being wrapped in aluminum foil to make the messy sandwich easier to handle. So simple, but so good, and something I could eat once a week without getting bored.

I'm also quite fond of a good chicken salad sandwich, and by "good," I mean chicken salad made with a mix of white and dark meat, chopped into fairly small pieces, a generous but not overwhelming amount of mayonnaise, and bits of minced onion. The seasoning can be simple salt and pepper, or something fancier like curry powder and mango chutney. The bread can be rye or a nice artisan loaf. Chicken salad sandwiches I am currently fond of include, believe it or not, the ones found at the University of Maryland Medical Center's Aramark-run cafeteria. The sandwich ladies are not skimpy with the scoops of salad, and they carefully remove the tough part of whole romaine leaves before arranging them carefully on your sandwich. And it's a steal at about $4. Mary Mervis, in the Lexington Market, also makes a fine chicken salad sammie. I like to make it a Chicken Smith by requesting a salty addition of a slice of Smithfield ham. This sometimes confuses the sandwich makers, so tell them to slice and weigh the ham and add the price to the sandwich.

Oh, there are so many more I can mention here: the asparagus and goat cheese wrap from the SouperFreak food truck, any number of tasty grilled cheeses (love the Fresco at Grilled Cheese & Co.), Attman's corned beef! and let's not forget Maryland's potential state sandwich - the soft shell crab. And burgers - but they're a completely different post....

What are your favorite sandwiches?

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Hamming It Up

I'm Polish, so I grew up eating a lot of ham. In addition to kapusta i kielbasy - sauerkraut and Polish sausage - we had baked ham for every major holiday. Early on, I grew to dislike the stuff, particularly cold, so my mother would let my brother and I eat as much as we wanted when it was fresh out of the oven.

Not only did we have baked ham entirely too many times during the year, we also ate a ton of imported ham cold cuts, which seemed to be the only kind my mother bought. Occasionally, we could coerce her into buying something different - bologna, or krakowska (a salami-like Polish sausage) - but that was rare. Mom liked ham. Grandma liked ham. So therefore We. Must. Eat. Ham.

I won't even get into my mothers Spam fetish. ::::shudder::::

When I was about three or four, my grandmother had a stroke. The details are quite vague, understandably (and I have no one to ask), but I do remember Grandma being bed-ridden for some months. Her bed had been moved into my Uncle Frank's room so he could keep an eye on her during the night, but during the day, she was under the care of my mother.

Mom would usually send me downstairs in the afternoon, presumably to keep Grandma company, but also perhaps to get me out of the way. During this time, Mom would make lunch for us. Funny how I don't recollect my grandmother's exact issues, but I have vivid memories of what we ate, every day. (Ok, maybe not so funny.)

Imported ham on either toasted white bread or rye, with iceberg lettuce and Thousand Island (or Russian) dressing. And a side of Funyuns.

To this day, a ham sandwich isn't edible unless it has a schmear of dressing and some lettuce. With mustard, it's just not worth my time, but with that sweetened mayonnaise-based concoction, it's downright - tasty. Go on - try it for yourself.

Ham on rye with lettuce and Russian dressing, from Cafe On the Square.