Quest for the Perfect Sandwich, 2: Condiments

This is going to become mayo.

In the first post, I posited that I was hoping to best Ike's and generate a homemade sandwich which I personally found as appealing.  Today we'll go over the ingredient whose importance is only overshadowed by the bread: condiments!  Often condiments seem an afterthought, dispensed out of tiny metal packets and sort of smeared around before the sandwich is closed.  However, given that the other sandwich ingredients (meat, cheese, lettuce) tend to be fairly bland in and of themselves, the condiments are the only serious opportunity to inject character into a sandwich.  Given my desire to have a sandwich I can throw together quickly, I've settled on trying to make a single sauce which can serve on its own.  The base of the sauce is Mayonnaise.

My lovely assistant.  Its hard to see
but she's currently whisking at high
velocity.

 In keeping with my recent food craziness I've decided to make the mayo base for the sauce from scratch, rather than using the store bought variety (although that also works quite nicely.)  This might be overkill, since in the end I'm going to load it up with spices anyway.  Still, why not?  Anyway, you can see all the necessary ingredients in the top image.  In the metal bowl I have whisked up a single egg yolk with 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp ground mustard, 1/8 tsp sugar, 1 tsp lemon juice, and 1 tsp white wine vinegar.  In the squeeze bottle (I got that at Sur la Table for $2.50) is 1 cup of oil.  I used extra virgin olive oil.  That was probably a mistake.  A milder oil (even just milder olive oil) would probably work better.

Now its full of flavor.

Now if you want to make mayo you have got to seriously prepare yourself for some arm exercise.  Alia and I took turns, actually.  Thankfully, feel free to take a break, it doesn't seem to hurt anything.  What you're going to do is very slowly start adding the oil (from the squeeze bottle) to the egg, while whisking it essentially as hard as you can.  By slowly, I mean a few drops at a time.  This worked just fine for me, but apparently if you add it too fast the sauce will 'break'.  I think you'll know what that means immediately if it happens to you.  
You can't see in the the picture, but I have a little rubber mat sitting underneath the bowl to keep it from sliding around.  You'll notice that the yolk becomes more opaque and thicker as you add the oil.  When I got about halfway through the oil bottle, the mass in the bowl was so thick it pretty much clumped up inside the whisk.  At this point, you add another tsp vinegar and tsp lemon juice.  It should smooth right back out.  You can increase the oil flow rate at this point, to more of a stream.

Back in the same squeeze bottle, ready
to be dispensed.

Once you've put in all the oil, you're done.  Now if, like me, you were silly and used extra virgin olive oil, it might not taste very good.  Otherwise, you might just want it to taste even better.  You can try loading it up with other stuff like I did.  I added:
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp smoked paprika (this is sort of an unusual spice, not the same as regular paprika.  I'm not sure regular paprika would taste that good.  Although it is a pretty color)
2 tbsp sweet red pepper relish
Lots of tabasco ( I think I used ~ 10 squirts)
Also 1 extra tsp lemon juice and vinegar each

After all the additions were incorporated, I put the sauce back in the squeeze bottle.
In retrospect I think something sweet would also go nicely in here, like honey or molasses.

It's Aliiiive!

Day 3

Lem is now several days old, and as predicted by the bread manual he smells like a good, if very ripe, cheese.  I'm pretty happy with this result.  He was fairly unpleasant Saturday morning, and I was pretty skeptical he would ever really turn I into something I would consider adding to my food. I split the culture and my little army of yeast cells is now off to the races, hopefully.

Day 5

I also had the chance to go to Tartine at bread time this weekend.  I picked up the actual article.  So the bread comes out of the oven each day at 4:30.  We got there at 5:30, and they had sold out of everything except wheat and sesame bread.  I was a little bummed not to try the classic country loaf I'm currently working on emulating, but the sesame loaf was really good.  Not really sandwich bread though.  It has giant holes, which seem to me like they would pose a problem for the sauce heavy sandwiches I'm working on.  Still, it's pretty good meal replacement bread.  A big smear of butter and it is ready to eat.  Also good toasted.  It has a really interesting and complex flavor.  Sort of like sourdough, only not sour.  (I realize that sounds pretty dumb, but I think you'd understand what I meant if you tasted it.)

The 'Real Deal': Sesame loaf from Tartine.  Look at those holes!

Bread Adventures

For V-Day, Alia got me this really cool cookbook Tartine Bread.  Tartine is a bakery in San Francisco, and its one of my absolute favorite places for food of any kind.  There is another cookbook from Tartine, which is one of my favorite cookbooks.  Combined with my recent foray into the world of bread baking (outlined in the previous post), this was a triple whammy of a present.

On the left, my birthday present from the Folks.  Yay Alton Brown!
On the right, the Tartine Bread book.

Tartine Bread is an interesting read.  Part recipe book, part memoir, part instruction manual, part gorgeous photography book.  Tartine is owned an operated by a husband and wife team, the husband being in charge of the bread baking (he's the author of Tartine Bread), and the wife being the pastry chef.  The first third of the book contains a short autobiography of how he came to be baking in San Francisco, as well as an extensive description of a TECHNIQUE for baking bread, really more than just a recipe.  Now, in true San Francisco Foodie style, Mr. Chad Robertson does not hold to any new fangled bread techniques like commercial yeast.  No, he bakes bread like they did in France before the industrial revolution, ie the hard way.  Still, I'm a sucker for a challenge so I'm going to see if I can't follow these instructions.  It must be easier than making single nanowire solar cells.

Lem, the proto-starter

Lem's Lair

Meet Lem, the leaven.  Well technically, Lem is not yet a leaven, nor even a starter, but soon, with time, he'll grow up to be big and yeasty.  At which point he can be used instead of commercial active/dry yeast.  So, one might feel that naming a baking ingredient is a little strange, and I have to agree; however, there is a purpose to the silliness.

Making a leaven is pretty easy.  You mix equal parts water and flour into a thick batter, then let it sit out at room temperature.  Naturally occurring yeasts which live in the flour as well as on your hands and in the air will then begin to grow inside this batter, eating the flour and generating CO2.  As the batter develops it will slowly be transformed into a living breathing micro-ecology full of yeast and bacteria.  In order for the starter to become a leaven, its necessary to obtain a steady state mixture of yeast and bacteria which, when added to a raw dough, will generate CO2 as well as the various acids which produce a deep and satisfying flavor in the bread.  The details of how this is accomplished can generate a huge variety of breads, from country bread to baguettes to full-on sourdough.  Building this little ecology requires regular 'feeding', which is accomplished by discarding most of it, and then replacing the discarded material with more flour/water batter.  (For biologists in the audience, I think this is essentially the same as splitting cell cultures.  Correct me if I'm wrong).  Since it needs regular care and feeding, this little biomass is sort of like a strange, foul smelling, yeasty, pet.  Hence the name.

I gather from my book that a real foodie would keep the starter at room temperature forever, which requires daily feeding (like any cell culture).  However, given that I've started with 200 grams of flour, and the book recommends discarding 80% of the starter at feeding time, it would take nearly 10 pounds of flour a month just to feed the starter!  That seems kind of wasteful, so I'm going to take the easy way out and refrigerate the starter once its good and yeasty.  Then it only needs to be fed the day before bread baking.  Apparently my ultimate mixture of lactic vs. acetic acid may be a bit on the sour side, but I'm willing to take that risk.

So in any case, Lem is growing as I write.  He may take up to a week to be ready for bread.  So soon hopefully I will post the outcome of my first Tartine Bread session.  Stay tuned!  Next post: Pickles!

The Quest for the Perfect Sandwich, Part 1: Dutch Crunch Bread

Recently, as in within the last year or two, a new sandwich place has moved onto Stanford's campus.  This place is called "Ike's", unsurprisingly started by a guy called Ike.  I actually really like the sandwiches at Ike's, as well as the fact that Ike himself is often the one running the sandwiches out the the happy customers.  I also actually really dislike two things about the dining experience at Ike's: 1 - the cost, and 2 - the hour and a half wait for sandwiches.  (Which explains the universal happiness that greets the sandwich runner of the day).

Believe it or not, this is homemade dutch crunch bread.
Fantastic.  This is the second attempt.

In order to save money while maintaining that sense of excitement that lunch has always brought out in me during the mornings, I've decided to embark on a quest to replicate Ike's sandwiches, or at least match their tastiness.  So, in order to do this, we must first isolate the special qualities that make their sandwiches so excellent.

I think we can safely divide a sandwich into 4 separate components:
1. bread, 2. sauce, 3. filling, and 4. 'toppings'

Ike's sandwiches excel in each of these categories.

Lets consider them in series.  First, the bread.  Bread is perhaps the MOST important component of a sandwich.  Not only is it the first thing you bite into, but its also the single largest element by volume.  The chewiness of the bread, how dry or moist it is, and in the case of heartier sandwiches like ruebens, the flavor of the bread, really dominate your eating experience.  Ike's sandwiches offer a large selection of breads, but almost everyone orders the 'Dutch Crunch'.  Apparently, this style of bread was invented right here in the Bay Area, although it can also be found in Britain and the Netherlands where it is called Tiger Bread.  From experience though, I don't think its as tasty over there.  (Although they have many other fine breads that are also fantastic).

My project at the moment has been to figure out how to get all the goodness of the Ike's dutch crunch bread.  The bread at the sandwich shop is baked fresh every day.  I tried buying dutch crunch rolls at Safeway, but they really didn't compare.  I did some searching, and I found this recipe.  I'm not going to rewrite it here, if you're interested go to the other website where it is very nicely described.  The secret to the crunch is actually a yeasty topping made with rice flour, which has the consistency of cake batter.  Its prepared separately from the rolls, and allowed to rise a bit on its own.  Then its applied in a thick layer during the last rise of the rolls.  When baked, it seems to cook first, forming a brittle shell which is then torn apart as the loftier bread dough underneath puffs up in the oven.  When you pull these fresh out of the oven, they have this amazing sweet crunchy exterior and a soft interior.  Fantastic!  They degrade significantly after sitting overnight, but I still prefer them to store bought bread.

Dramatic re-enactment.  It was very much like this, but
much hotter.

The first try worked pretty well.  The crunch part came out nicely and the bread was good, but dense.  I read this primer on bread baking, and decided to try again.  I left all the ingredients the same actually, but made 3 important changes to my technique.  First, it is important not to overwork the dough.  It should still be pretty sticky before the first rising step.  Second, I learned that baking stones also work really well for bread.  We have one of those, but we've only ever used it for pizza.  I pulled it out and put it to work.  (You'll save yourself a big headache if you use parchment paper to transfer the dough onto the stone.  Also works for pizza!).  Finally, having a steamy oven during cooking slows down the crisping of the crust, making it more stretchable, which allows the bubbles in the bread to expand more during cooking.  You'll have lighter fluffier bread.  This is accomplished by putting a source of steam, in my case a glass of ice cubes thrown into a cast iron skillet preheated to the oven along with the pizza stone. The changes work beautifully.


Most of these rolls have gone towards our lunches.  I've also been working on the 3 other sandwich components, which may be discussed in a future post.  I will leave you with tonight's dinner however, which is a Dave original recipe:

The Imperial Jerk Chicken Sandwich:
Makes Dinner for 2

What?  Jerk Sauce?  Fried Chicken? Together!
Yes, it can be done!

Ingredients:
For Chicken
1 large chicken breast, room temperature, cut into strips no more than 1/2" thick
1.5 cups flour
Montreal Chicken Seasoning
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup water
Salt
Cooking oil (I used peanut oil)

For Jerk Sauce:
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup dark rum
1 pickled habanero pepper (optional)
2 green onions
Big hunk of red onion (Like, 1/8 to 1/4 of a large onion)
1/2 green bell pepper
1 tbsp ground allspice

1 tbsp ground ginger
1/4 cup brown suger
1 tbsp mollasses
4 cloves garlic, or 1 big spoon-full of minced garlic from a jar
1.5 tbsp olive oil

Toppings:
Sour cream
The other 1/2 green bell pepper, cut into thin strips
Lettuce (I like to use one of those premade store salad mixes)
Banana slices (Crazy right?  You'll be happy to have them if you used the habanero pepper in the jerk sauce)

Instructions:

To prepare sauce: Combine all ingredients except olive oil in food processor.  Pulse until the sauce is nearly a paste.  Heat oil in a frying pan, then add jerk paste (careful, its going to boil like mad when it hits the oil).  Cook until the vinegar smell has come off the sauce and it has thickened, about 3 minutes. (I used one pickled habanero pepper, and the sauce had our sinuses running.  You could try a fresh jalapeno instead.  Traditional jerk sauce uses scotch bonnet peppers, but I didn't have any of those)

To prepare chicken: Heat oil in a deep fry pan.  I use my trusty iron skillet.  I didn't deep fry the chicken; you only really need enough to cover the bottom of the skillet well, not more than 1/4 to 1/2 an inch.  Its less to clean up afterwards that way.

You need to set up two bowls, one with flour mixed with salt and montreal chicken seasoning.  The second bowl has the batter, which is made by beating the egg yolk with the water and more salt in a bowl, then adding flour and chicken seasoning until it has the consistency of pancake batter.  Take your chicken and first coat it nicely with the dry flour, then dip it in the batter, and finally coat it again in the dry flour.  Trust me, this will help you get enough batter to form a nice crunchy shell when the chicken fries.

Now put the battered chicken strips in the skillet.  Don't burn yourself on the hot oil which will inevitably start leaping out of the skillet.  Also, don't crowd the pan.  You want the oil to stay as hot as possible or the chicken will come out greasy.  Work in small batches, turning the chicken a few times to let the inside cook nicely without burning the crunch.  Its done when the coating is a deep deep brown. I always have to cut open a bigger piece just to make sure the chicken is cooked through.  Once cooked, put the chicken on a plate or shallow bowl lined with paper towels.  You can keep it warm tightly covering the top with more paper towels and a piece of aluminum foil.  We made sandwiches though so the chicken doesn't need to be too hot.

It may not be a particularly Jamaican
 spread, but its all tasty together anyway.

Serve with, of course, dutch crunch bread rolls.  The toppings we used were lettuce, sour cream, green pepper, and my favorite, banana slices!  The bananas really help cut the heat of the jerk sauce, and add a pleasant sweetness to the whole affair.  On the side we had a simple salad of corn, black beans, lime juice, and jicama.  (Alia's secret recipe.  I left out the secret parts)