This is quite similar to a pepperoni pizza, the favorite pizza of the US. We changed it up a bit and used a local organic sausage from the local Poway farmer’s market. We also added blue cheese and onion to give the mouth a kick to the teeth. It works brilliantly, and is one of our favorite foods.
Continue reading Blue Cheese, Parmesan, Salami and Onion Pizza
“Pizza!” you may be saying with increduility as you wonder at the seeming incongruity of providing pizza recipes on a sandwich blog. Well, please bear with us while we provide this rather plausible and very convincing rationale.
In Scandinavia, there is a long tradition of open-faced sandwiches (or smørrebrød as they are called in Denmark). Open-faced sandwiches are essentially bread, with layered toppings. So it’s not much of a stretch to call a pizza, a sandwich. After all, it is just that: bread with layered toppings. For the pizza purists among the readers, this might seem like too much of a stretch, but we say that pizza by any other name is still an open faced sandwich. Convinced yet?
Continue reading Smoked Salmon Pizza – The Way My Mother Never Made It
Sometimes a simple sandwich is the best; this one has Maria’s liver pâté, onion, creamy garlic paste and a little onion. A perfect combo, so despite an urge add more, we stuck to ‘simple’. After being sick with the cold for 5 days, this was also pretty much what we could handle, as we were both exhausted. It’s nice to recover with a great sandwich, and we hope to get back to creating some great new ones this upcoming weekend. Thanksgiving is also approaching, so if anyone has great turkey sandwiches, let us know and we just might give them a try!
Continue reading Liver Pate Sandwich with Onion and Garlic Spread on Sesame Bagel
Lingonberries are small red slightly sour berries that are famous throughout Scandinavia. Lingonberry bread, as the one we have here, is a mix we got at the local Ikea. It is a dark bread, almost rye, with a minimal amount of lingonberries (We found 3), and decent if you’re in a rush (and for just a couple bucks, it’s very well priced). However, we won’t be trying it again, at least not without some augmentation. This sandwich was made on our first lingonberry bread ever, fresh out of the oven (and that’s always good). Sliced turkey from the local deli, creamy garlic paste from the local farmer’s market and fresh avocado and red bell peppers makes up this little adventure. The creamy garlic paste we found is amazing on sandwiches, and we highly recommend it. It’s from ‘The Majestic Garlic”.
The story of this sandwich is as much a tale of the bread as it is the sandwich. Although we are somewhat ‘accomplished novices’ in making sourdough breads, this was our first attempt at making a baguette. This deceptively simple bread was anything but. Several things went wrong: after the final rise the baguettes looked amazing, big and puffy and we were congratulating ourselves on being such good students of Peter Reinhart. However, we had not done the final proofing on the baking sheet and, in transferring them, ended up loosing about 30 percent of their size. As a result, they are very solid inside, and not soft and airy like real baguettes. We also managed to somehow get the crust too crunchy. It should be mentioned that our oven is terribly old and very unreliable, which turns all our baking into exercises in patience and surprises. The taste was decent however, and although not the stuff of Boulangerie Pierre & Patisserie legend, the baguettes performed creditably in a number of sandwiches, such as this one with salami and cheese.
Few leftovers are as versatile as chicken – the possibilities are (nearly)endless, and if the chicken is at least moderately good, with the right toppings and other accompaniments, you can have as splendid enviable meal in less than 10 minutes. After a long day at work, what’s not to love? Don’t get us wrong, this sandwich is even better if you cook a chicken just for this purpose and make the sandwich the same day, but seriously, who does that? Why a bagel you might ask? Well bagels make for pretty darn good sandwiches. That and the fact that since we buy our bagels at Costco,, we are forced to find innovative ways to use them before they develop freezer burn:-). They defrost in 30 seconds in a microwave. Cut them while still very cold (but not frozen), and proceed directly to the sandwich making. The result, like here, is a perfectly toasted bagel that is neither to hard or soft, but just perfect after toasting.
We eat a lot of salmon in our house; smoked salmon, grilled salmon, and last night seared salmon. So we had to try and see if we could turn some of the leftovers into a delicious second-day sandwich (It’s what we do after all). In this case, we have a piece of seared salmon with black sesame seeds, fennel seeds, and spices. Since salmon is ‘light’, we decided to add a few grilled vegetables, a bit of cheese, and some thinly sliced pear. Of course, we used roasted garlic as a smear. This combination does hide the salmon taste a bit, but it brings out all the lovely nuances of the grilled veggies, and we were very pleased with the final outcome. Judge for yourself, try it, and let us know what you think in the comment section.
This kafta sandwich is very spicy due to the black bean chili. We wanted to create something with more ‘umph’ to it, but also something fresh. So we came up with adding lemon and yogurt dressing to take the edge of the chili, and the combination really worked well. This sandwich will make your hair grow long and strong, and turn boys to men and men to sheep. It also goes well with any episode of Law & Order.
At our favorite shawarma shop on Strøget in Copenhagen, known as Shawarma #1 (presumably because the address is at #1, but also because it was the first shawarma shop in Copenhagen anno 1980), one of our favorite sandwiches is the kafta burger. When ordered, you must wait patiently while the patties grill for 10-15 minutes and frequently ask yourself “did they forget me?” In 20 years, they have never forgotten me, and the wait is always worthwhile.
Living in San Diego, we wanted a way to re-create our own version of the kafta burger. So, we created this recipe, which is a mix of several other recipes found online. We wanted our own unique blend of spices; More spicy, more parsley, and of course with fennel.
Excited about the prospect of making paninis, and after holding out for a few weeks, we finally decided to get a panini press (well, Anders decided :-)). So down to the nearest Target and what do they have? Shelves up and down stacked with George Foreman grills. Now I didn’t grow up in the US so I don’t really know George Foreman, but he is certainly a very prolific grill maker. So, without a choice, we got a George Foreman grill which we put up next to Alessi wine bottle opener and the Georg Jensen beer bottle opener. After all, if you can’t name your kitchen equipment by name, how will you tell them apart?
Well, the grill is clearly no panini press. The bread barely got any of those distinctive grill stripes, despite a very long grilling session. It did taste great however, so we decided to add it to our growing sandwich collection anyway. You can’t argue with good food. However, we also decided it’s a borderline panini, hence the name.
