Tag: sandwich

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A Special Occasion Sandwich

By Fran Hill

I live in a small town without a grocery store. That is pretty common in the rural areas of South Dakota, and I am fortunate that neighboring towns offer shopping options. However, that doesn’t stop a food-obsessed person like me from adding grocery stores to my list of errands every time I am out of town. I carry collapsible coolers in my car and have favorite items in stores that are two to three hours away.

One of those stores is home to an in-store bakery that makes potato rolls that I simply can’t resist. These soft, pillowy buns are delicious as simple dinner rolls, and even more fabulous toasted and used in sandwiches. My only complaint is that they are sold in packages of eight. As a family of two (and three dogs), eight sandwich buns mean a lot of sandwiches in order to use them before mold takes over.

After my most recent potato bun purchase, I made it my life’s mission to sandwich everything. We grilled burgers, and another night we had our favorite lamb burgers. Chicken was also grilled and tossed in hot sauce for buffalo chicken sandwiches. We had tuna sandwiches, and even talked about how we hadn’t had fried bologna sandwiches in forever. However, I think my best use of the soft potato buns was Crab Cake BLTs for Sunday brunch.

Another purchase that I make is tins or tubs of pasteurized lump crabmeat. Sold in the refrigerator section of markets with decent seafood options, this sweet crab has a fairly long shelf life, and is nice to have on hand when you want something special. I don’t know if Sunday brunch is truly a special occasion, but in my book, it should be.

I roasted bacon on a rack over a cookie sheet in the oven while prepping the crab cakes. Because mine were burger-sized, I slid the browned crab cakes onto that same rack and into the oven for a few minutes while I waited for Hubs to come home from Sunday morning chores. This ensured that they were cooked through even with the extra heft.

The toasted potato buns were spread with my version of spicy mayo. (Just whisk Sriracha sauce into some purchased mayo.) It complements the sweetness of the crab and smokiness of the bacon. Fresh lettuce adds crispness, and slices of tomato are a must, even if those from the garden are still a few weeks away. Crab Cake BLTs are probably one of my best uses for potato buns.

A Crab Cake BLT on a toasted potato bun makes for a special Sunday brunch.

Crab Cakes

1 cup lump crab meat, picked over

1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs (Last time I made these, I threw a couple of hot dog buns into the oven just until toasted and then cubed up for the breadcrumbs. In other words, use what you have.)

1 large egg

2 tablespoons heavy cream

several dashes of hot sauce (to taste)

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

2 teaspoons grated onion

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine breadcrumbs with heavy cream and allow to absorb into mush. Add beaten egg, hot sauce, Worcestershire, parsley and onion. Stir in crabmeat, being careful not to break up too much. You want chunks of the crab for the best flavor in the cake.

In a large, heavy skillet, heat the butter over moderate heat. Form patties with the crab mixture and carefully place in hot butter. The patties will be loose, and there is not a lot of filler in these cakes. I like that the crab is the focus. Cook crab cakes until golden on each side and then slide onto a baking sheet and into a warm oven for up to 15-20 minutes. (Yield: 4 burger-sized crab cakes or 12 small appetizer portions…can skip the oven bake for smaller cakes)

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their three dogs ranch near Colome.

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Turkey With A Twist

By Fran Hill

I love Thanksgiving. Just the thought of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberries makes my mouth water. When it comes to my menu, I am a traditionalist. I’m not interested in any new amazing twists to my recipes. Basic roasted butternut squash or sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts and green beans don’t need any fancy sauces. After all, we have gravy. Lots of delicious gravy.

Likewise, I don’t need any you-won’t-believe-how-good-this-is makeovers for my leftovers. I think that a hot turkey sandwich smothered in — you guessed it — gravy, or one layered with dressing and cranberries on a sweet dinner roll is perfection. And who doesn’t love turkey soup simmered with homemade noodles a couple of days later? Yep. I am content with the basics of Thanksgiving dinner.

However, sometimes my thankful heart is just a little bit bigger than my stomach. My bird may barely fit into the oven, and even after passing the carved turkey around the table yet one more time, there is still a lot of roasted poultry left for the coming days. That’s when I get creative.

Pesto is one of my favorite summertime staples, and tossed with diced, cooked turkey, it creates a fresh take for leftover sandwiches. Roasted red peppers also brighten the flavors and make it one more thing for which to be thankful.

If you’ve had enough of the traditional Thanksgiving fare, turn leftover turkey into a fresh and flavorful sandwich.

Pesto Turkey Salad Sandwiches

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup plain yogurt

1/4 cup pesto sauce

3/4 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups cubed cooked turkey

1/2 cup diced celery

focaccia bread, cut in half horizontally, toasted, and sliced

3-4 tablespoons chopped roasted red peppers (from bottle)

romaine lettuce leaves

Whisk first 6 ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in turkey and celery.

Spread 1/2 cup of salad onto half of bread slices. Top each serving with chopped roasted red peppers, lettuce leaf, and remaining bread. (May sub rotisserie chicken for the turkey for a quick year-round alternative. Makes 5 sandwiches.)

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their three dogs ranch near Colome.

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The Head Cheese

By Laura Andrews

My beloved spouse is fond of describing his years of single living by saying,”Bachelor life is not for the squeamish.” Married life may not be much better — especially in the culinary department.

When Mike picked me up for lunch the other day, he was in a snit. He’d seen post-Christmas bargain fruitcake at a local big box store and bought four to sample. When he went back for more, he was disappointed to see that someone had beat him to the clearance rack. He was only able to bring home 36 fruitcakes. Why, that’s less than one a week for the rest of the year! He felt somewhat better when he glanced over the receipt and realized that they’d failed to charge him for one. I feigned awe over his bargain-hunting skills. “Buy 39 clearance fruitcakes, get the next one free? That’s a heck of a deal, dear.”

Given his passion for the notorious holiday treat/gag gift (he wants to start an Fruitcake Anti-Defamation League), I shouldn’t have been surprised that he could handle all the challenges that my family’s Scandinavian-American Christmas feasts had to offer. Pickled herring — no big deal. S¯dsuppe, a Danish fruit soup, was downed with glee. I even heard Mike whisper to my father that the lutefisk was delicious. Clearly the man has an iron stomach.

So when I had a chance to bring home a bit of free meat, I didn’t hesitate. Heier’s Meat Market in Hosmer had been nice enough to send John Andrews (no relation) a box of delicious meats in appreciation for the article he’d written for our November/December issue about the cuisine of Germans from Russia enjoyed in Hosmer, Eureka and other places around the state. When I eyed the head cheese, John was kind enough to share. I was eager to try it. I remembered Laura Ingalls Wilder writing about it in her Little House series…and let’s be honest, the faces people make when the subject of head cheese comes up was another powerful incentive.

But what does one do with head cheese? If you google “head cheese recipes,” you learn how to make a stock using a pig, cow or sheep’s head. The gelatinous broth is cooked down, mixed with meaty bits from the animal’s skull, onions and spices and refrigerated until firm. But then what?

I asked Ruth Steil, South Dakota Magazine’s Administrative Assistant and food expert, if she knew any good ways to eat head cheese. Turns out she grew up on it fried with blood sausage and topped with white Karo syrup. Too bad I didn’t have any blood sausage. Other sources suggested treating it as a luncheon meat. Office Curmudgeon Roger Holtzmann overheard our conversation and remarked, “The whole question is an oxymoron. There is no good way to eat head cheese — it belongs in the compost pile.”

Nonsense, Roger! As it turns out, head cheese is rather tasty. After a small sample, Mike & I decided it’d be good sliced it up thin and served on pumpernickel with a little lettuce and mustard. Mike thinks it tastes like ham, so he took to it right away. I was surprised by its firm texture and hint of onion flavor. The head cheese sandwiches have made a fine accompaniment to our lunchtime bowls of soup. I’m thinking of trying the leftover luncheon meat as a pizza topping this weekend. We’ll see what that does to my stalwart spouse’s stomach.

To try head cheese yourself, check with your local butcher or pay a visit to Heier’s Meat Market of Hosmer.

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Out of the Mouths of Babes

By Fran Hill

When I am not preparing fabulous recipes to share here at South Dakota Magazine and on my blog, I sometimes work as a substitute teacher in the local school district. My career in education began with a stint as a special education aide and has wound its way through every classroom in both the elementary and high school at one time or another. There are so many stories that I could tell to make you smile, chuckle, belly laugh, blush and even cry. The students really are the best part of the job.

The other day, I had the pleasure of spending time with the second grade class. They were tired but wired after a state championship football game at the Dome the night before. While our Cowboys didn’t win, my young class was still extremely proud of the football team, and talk of the game worked its way into almost every subject that day. I find it awesome that this group of students is so uninhibited with sharing opinions, ideas, and praise.

When we headed to the lunch room for our mid-day break, I grabbed my ham and cheese on wheat sandwich and the apple I had packed that morning. After a little silence as the hungry students inhaled their lunches, the candid chatter began once again. It was at this time that the little boy sitting across from me asked why I wasn’t eating the other half of my sandwich. I explained that after also eating the entire large Honeycrisp apple, I was full. Without missing a beat, he replied that I should eat it anyway because I would be hungry later.

You know what? Out of the mouths of babes; he was right.

By the time classes were dismissed that day, I was starving. I couldn’t wait to get home and raid my cupboards. It took discipline not to hit up Hubs’ stash of potato chips, and dinner couldn’t come soon enough that night. I should have listened to that second grade wisdom.

This Open-Faced Hot Chicken Sandwich with Mushroom Gravy isn’t the kind of sandwich that I would normally pack in my lunch, but it is the kind of comforting meal that fills you up. Juicy, seasoned chicken cutlets top hearty toast and swim in a deliciously creamy gravy. Nobody will have to tell you to swirl your fork around to gather every last drop of the savory goodness. You won’t be hungry later.

Open-Faced Hot Chicken Sandwich with Mushroom Gravy

Adapted from Rachel Ray

4 boneless, skinless chicken cutlets
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
Olive oil
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
1 large shallot, chopped
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped (plus additional for garnish)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
4 slices hearty bread, such as sourdough or potato, toasted

Season the chicken with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the chicken and cook until golden on each side. Transfer to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm. Add 3 tablespoons of butter to the skillet and slightly lower the heat. Add mushrooms and shallots and cook until tender. Sprinkle in the flour and stir while cooking. Add the chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Stir in the cream, parsley and mustard. Cook until the gravy thickens. Brush the toast with the remaining butter and top with the chicken cutlets. Cover with gravy and garnish with additional chopped parsley. Serves 4.

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and two dogs reside near Colome.


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I Stepped on a Sandwich

By Fran Hill

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine from Sioux Falls was headed to a meeting and parked in a downtown parking lot. As she exited her car, her footing felt a little off. She had stepped on a sandwich. It was a white bread and bologna sandwich, if I recall correctly.

Last winter on my way to the big city for some Christmas errands, I pulled into a small town convenience store for a pit stop. You guessed it. As I got out of my vehicle, I stepped on a sandwich. Mine was the premade cold-cut variety meant to be tossed into the microwave for 30 seconds, not to the pavement in a parking lot.

Both of us were grossed out. Both of us pondered how those sandwiches came to be lingering in parking lots to be trampled by our unsuspecting feet. Both of us needed to clean condiments and smashed bread from the soles of our shoes.

I don’t think that you can call two incidents of stepping on sandwiches in parking lots a trend, but just how prevalent is sandwich abuse? Are sandwiches lost every day in parking lots across the state? Or, is this some kind of cult ritual I am exposing? Are sandwiches offered regularly to the parking lot gods? Are they supposed to be stepped on? And, most importantly, have YOU ever stepped on a sandwich?

I don’t recommend stepping on Our Favorite Panini, but like ill-fated parking lot sandwiches, the fillings of this sandwich are pressed between two slices of bread, this time, toasted and preferably sour dough. The Dijon mustard and pepperoncini peppers add zing to the layers of deli meats and melted cheese. I have included sliced tomatoes, baby spinach, pickles, onions, and bacon in this panini from time to time, but I have never stepped on it in a parking lot.

Our Favorite Panini

8 slices sourdough bread
2 tablespoons mayo
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
4 slices Swiss cheese
4 slices provolone or mozzarella cheese
4 slices cheddar cheese
1/2 lb deli turkey
1/2 lb deli ham
1/2 lb sandwich pepperoni
1/2 lb Genoa salami
pepperoncini peppers, cut


Preheat the panini grill. Combine mayo and mustard together and spread on each slice of bread. Layer remaining ingredients on each of 4 slices of the bread. Start with Swiss cheese, then ham, cheddar cheese, then turkey, provolone (or mozzarella) cheese, then salami and pepperoni, and finally peppers before topping with remaining 4 slices of bread. Brush the outside of each sandwich with butter and grill until crispy on the outside and melty on the inside. Serves 4.

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and two dogs reside near Colome.

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The Humble Tavern

By Laura Johnson

I’ve never been much of a proselytizer — it seems impolite to tell people what they ought to believe when they’re surely capable of figuring it out for themselves. However, the urge will occasionally strike, usually in fairly absurd places. I discovered one of my soft spots while leafing through the Vangen Lutheran Church cookbook looking for inspiration. It was filled with good, solid, unobjectionable Midwestern cuisine until I got to the tavern section and started looking at the ingredients. Tomato soup? KETCHUP? That’s not right at all! Could it be that the good Lutheran women of Mission Hill didn’t know how to make a proper tavern?

I felt sick. How could my old friends and neighbors go off to serve their Lord in that great soup kitchen in the sky with these inferior loosemeat sandwich concoctions? Concerned for the state of their souls, I vowed to go forth waving the royal banner and sounding trumpets to gain converts to the one true tavern recipe, the one my grandmother stirred up so many times over the years, bringing delight to all who partook. I’d go out and preach in the streets. Heck, I was even prepared to battle my South Dakota Magazine co-workers over the correct way to make this most South Dakotan sandwich.

Sadly, this religious fervor was soon squelched. I conferred with my aunt, who broke it to me gently: there is no recipe. Grandma followed a very simple procedure, amping up the beefy flavor with beef bouillion granules or cubes if necessary. With no clear law to lay down, my career as a tavern missionary was over before it began.

Now that reality has humbled me once again, I come to you in a less aggressive spirit. How do you like to make taverns? What do you call them? Here’s how we do it in my little corner of Yankton County.


Taverns, Johnson Style

2 lbs. hamburger
1 large onion
Salt
Pepper
Water, beef or chicken stock

Finely mince onion. Mix onion and hamburger in a heavy pot. Cover with water or stock and bring to a boil. Cover and cook until the mixture turns grainy, stirring whenever you happen to pass by the stove. This could take hours. After the beef has broken down into tiny particles, uncover and let the water cook out until the meat is thick enough to serve on a bun. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with mustard and a pickle slice or two.