Wednesday, February 13, 2013

the secret to sammidge making

today my friend gohawk reminded me that i have not yet posted the secrets to making fabulous sammidges as i promised last week.

a long time ago i was on a boat some friends and our friend elaine (whose boat it was) had brought the sammidges.

let me just say this about elaine: if she ever volunteers to bring the refreshments, let her. she is very, very good at refreshments.

better than you, probably. it's not that you suck. it's just that she really is that good.


anyway, we were all on the boat and there were turkey sammidges and they didn't look terribly fancy but we all agreed that OUR turkey sammidges are NEVER that good and elaine told us the secret to sammidge making.

it's really simple, and it goes a little beyond just using good bread and good fillings.

i have been using this secret for years and now people always want to know why my sammidges are better than theirs.

elaine's secret rules for making awesome sammidges

1) coat with inside of the bread with a thin layer of some kind of fat. this is usually butter or mayo. the purpose of this is to keep the bread from absorbing moisture and also fats transmit flavors. thin layer. gotcha.

2) put anything that will leach moisture (like tomatoes) between the meat and the cheese or in the case of vegan sammidge-making, between items of relative waterproofness.

3) and this is the important, least known rule: ADD A SECRET INGREDIENT.  it does not matter whether the secret ingredient is mango chutney or a splash of miso or a smear of tomato paste. whatever it is, pick up something besides the expected fillings and just add that extra note of "something". just a little. it wakes up the other flavors and maybe you can't figure out what it is but it is a whole nother sammidge.

elaine was trying to explain this to us, and were all, like, secret ingredient? what ingredient?

it doesn't matter.  a tiny bit of anything that's sweet or bright or salty or sour, anything that's flavorful and unexpected: that's your secret ingredient.

when people ask you about it, you can be coy and say "secret ingredient",  or you can just tell them.




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