I love a sandwich. Why are they so often relegated to lunchtime? As far as I am concerned, they are a meal as worthy of fanfare as any other. In its basic form, a sandwich takes little skill – and that’s the joy of it. A careful selection of ingredients that are ordinary on their own turn into something wonderful when flanked by a couple of slices of good bread.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been on the west coast of America with family, spending days in small-town diners and restaurants in Oregon and California. In the US, the sandwich is a broad concept, taking in wraps, burgers and bagels, to name a few. While here, we’ve eaten our fair share on the road, feasting on reubens, Vietnamese banh mi and an endless stream of vegetarian burgers in the quest to find the best. It’s been tough research, but we were up to the task.
At home, sandwiches play a big part in how we eat. Most often I make a kind of reuben sandwich, a quick maple-marinated tofu or tempeh, fried until crisp, a little thinly cut cheddar, dill pickles and chilli-spiked mayo. It’s always on good bread, sourdough or something richly seeded. After all, a sandwich can only ever be as good as its bread – a proverb I think we could all live by. The recipe below would be my desert island sandwich. It has everything.
Ricotta and romesco sandwich
The romesco takes a little time to make, but once you have a jar of this flavour-packed wonder sauce in your fridge, it will fuel a week’s worth of meals and you’ll be patting yourself on the back after each one. This recipe makes more romesco than you need, so I’ve suggested some more ideas for how to use it below.
Makes 2 sandwiches
4 slices of sourdough bread
100g ricotta
1 avocado
A couple of handfuls of green leaves and your preferred herbs
For the sauce
150g blanched almonds
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for frying
2 slices good, stale white bread (about 40g), torn into chunks
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
220g jar of roasted red peppers, drained
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 small dried chilli, crumbled, or a pinch of dried chilli flakes
Salt and black pepper
1 Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. First, make your romesco sauce. Scatter the almonds on a baking tray and roast for 8-10 minutes, until golden. Meanwhile, heat a little olive oil in a pan and fry the bread until golden brown all over. Add the garlic and smoked paprika and cook for a further minute, then take off the heat.
2 Transfer the almonds and toasted bread to a food processor. Add the peppers and blitz until you have a coarse paste – don’t get carried away, you want some texture.
3 Tip the whole lot into a mixing bowl, stir in the extra virgin olive oil, sherry vinegar and chilli. Mix well, then season to taste. Romesco is about a balance of punchy flavours, and it will mellow and meld as you leave it to sit. Too thick? Add a little water. Too sweet? Add a little vinegar. Too sharp? Add a little oil.
4 When you are ready to eat your sandwiches, lightly toast the bread. Spread the ricotta thickly on two slices and the romesco generously on the other two. Slice the avocado, put it on top of the romesco, then put the ricotta bread on top to sandwich the lot.
5 Heat a dry frying pan until medium hot and toast the sandwiches on each side for 2-3 minutes. Take off the heat, then quickly fill with your salad leaves and herbs, and eat.
Ways to use romesco
- As a dip for baby carrots and spring veg.
- As a marinade for barbecued veg.
- Piled on to roasted veg for extra flavour.
- Tossed through cooked noodles with pan-fried greens.
- Stirred into a bowl of brown rice and topped with a poached egg.
- As an accompaniment to your morning eggs.
- With flatbread and feta for a quick simple lunch.
- Spooned on top of a bowl of soup.
Cashew and chestnut burgers
I always feel cheated when the vegetarian burger option is a big, thoughtlessly cooked mushroom or a couple of slices of halloumi. A good vegetarian burger is quite something.
I love this one, and I’ve paired it with a quick chilli and onion pickle and a Tabasco-spiked cornichon mayonnaise – a classier version of a much-loved burger sauce that shall remain nameless. It would work well, too, with avocado and hummus, cheddar and a tomato chutney, or your favourite burger toppings.
These burgers freeze well and also work marvellously on a barbecue. I usually make double the burger mixture and freeze half. If I am feeling virtuous, I wrap the burgers in spring greens instead of buns.
Makes 6
For the burgers
200g unsalted cashews, soaked overnight if you have time
200g cooked vac-packed chestnuts
1 small red onion, peeled and grated
1 red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped
Zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
150g breadcrumbs
A few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked and roughly chopped
100g cheddar cheese, grated
1 tbsp soy or tamari sauce
1 egg, beaten
Olive oil, for frying
For the pickle
2 medium red onions
2 red chillies
½ tsp fennel seeds
½ tsp honey
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
Salt
For the relish
10 cornichons
3 tbsp good mayonnaise
1 tsp Tabasco
A good pinch of smoked paprika
Salt and black pepper
To serve
6 burger buns
½ iceberg or cos lettuce, shredded
1 First, make your burgers. Put the cashew nuts and chestnuts into a food processor and blitz to a fineish breadcrumb texture. Transfer to a mixing bowl, add the rest of the ingredients except the olive oil and mix well. Wet your hands and shape the mix into 6 patties. Lay them on an oven tray lined with baking paper and put them in the freezer to firm up for 5 minutes or so.
2 Meanwhile, make the pickle. Finely slice the onions and chillies and put them into a bowl with the fennel seeds, honey, vinegar and a good pinch of salt. Scrunch a little with your hands then put to one side.
3 Next, make the relish. Finely slice the cornichons and put into a bowl with the mayonnaise, Tabasco, paprika, a pinch of salt and a grind of pepper.
4 Warm a little oil over a low heat and fry the burgers for 5–7 minutes, turning until they are brown all over. They can also be baked in the oven at 220C/425F/gas mark 7 for 12 minutes or barbecued for a few minutes on each side.
5 Toast your burger buns, spread the bottom half with the cornichcon mayonnaise, pile on the lettuce, top with a burger and then the pickle.
- Anna Jones is a chef, writer and author of A Modern Way to Eat and A Modern Way to Cook(Fourth Estate); annajones.co.uk; @we_are_food
