The Twenty Six Dollar Sandwich

In New Orleans They Call It A Muffuletta...


Monday I'm sort of responsible for lunch at my office. They came to me and asked for "ideas" for a quarterly employee luncheon, and I took matters to task and came up with my own signature solution.

Fourteen people (not including the two on vacation) will starve if I screw up.

We have a kitchen which has everything but an oven, so all of the cooking has to be done before hand or avoided all together. Since I can't make a dishwasher cook pasta I'm cooking a little here at home today in preparation for the event.

In addition to the basic ingredients for boring old sandwiches with meat and cheese on a slice of bread, if you're adventurous I'm providing the ingredients for Greek Gyros featuring my own home made lamb loaf filling and tzatziki (yogurt cucumber) sauce and we're also putting together a couple of giant Muffulettas for the event.

I actually started my work late yesterday with these ingredients for the olive salad on the Muffulettas:

1 medium can Sliced Black olives
pint of Green Salad Olives
pint of Whole Goya olives
1/2 cup Cocktail Onions
1/4 cup Capers
2 Carrots, sliced fine
1 stalk Celery
3/4 cup Pepperroncini
1 cup Pickled Cauliflower
1/4 cup Capers

1/4 cup celery seeds
1/4 oregano
1 head garlic, diced fine
1 table spoon black pepper

1/2 cup of olive oil

A Loaf of Fat Round Bread

Sliced Genoa Salami
Sliced Sopressata Salami
Sliced Ham (preferably Serrano but I settled for Virginia baked)

Sliced Manchego Cheese

You put everything but the bread, meat, and cheese into a food processor and pulse it until you have a coarse mixture.

Add the olive oil.

Refrigerate it over night.

Now slice the loaf of bread in half horizontally, tear out a few chunks of the insides to make room, and smear some more olive oil on the insides of the bread. Layer your olive salad, meats, and cheese alternating the layers until you run out of ingredients or get tired (or think you've got a big enough sandwich.)

Wrap the whole thing up tightly in Saran Wrap and let it sit for a while (or in the fridge over night), then slice it up and EAT that sucker.

Call me about 6 PM today and I'll tell you how my test Muffuletta tasted (half the fun of cooking is doing the research .)