Asparagus and Cheese Sandwich

June 3, 2012 by 2 Comments

At the Portland Farmers Market on Saturday, there were asparagus everywhere looking so green and crunchy as it is now in full season for it. As I was also passing by one of my favorite bread vendors Fressen and their hearty German bread, I saw they had Jogger bread. Jogger is a white bread (so softer and more delicate than the usual Vollkenbrot I use to pair with cheese and charcuterie) peppered with lots of Sea Salt, Pumpkin Seed, Flaxseed, Sesame Seed, and Sunflower Seed… soft seedy goodness.

So for a Sunday lunch, I decided to try making asparagus sandwich, and took inspiration from a few different recipes online but mainly Homesick Texan for her Parmesan coated toasted bread.

Ingredients (makes 4 sandwiches):

  • Half a bunch of asparagus. I picked out the thinnest stalks- I saved the other half for roasting with hazelnuts or making asparagus/edamame salad.
  • 8 slices of thick good bread
  • 4 teaspoons of your choice of flavored mayo
  • 2 tablespoons of melted butter (either thanks to heat from the pan or microwave)
  • 1/2 cup of grated or shredded Parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 cup of shredded or 4 slices of your favorite cheese

Directions:

  • Preheat the oven to 400 F
  • Cut the stalks- I can usually look and know where the hard portion is and cut that part off, but another trick is to hold each stalk in the middle and then bend the bottom part from the bottom fo the stem until it snaps (it will snap where it begins to change from hard stringiness to what will be crunchy stalk). After you have done that with all the asparagus, steam the asparagus for a few minutes (they should be a bright green but still firm and crunchy), refresh in cold water. Cut the asparagus into pieces that can fit into your sandwich- I kept them relative long by cutting them in half, but I recommend cutting them shorter.
  • Meanwhile, spray a baking sheet. Dip or brush one side of each of your slices of bread in the melted butter- you will need this later to have the Parmesan stick to the bread instead of fall off. Lay the bread on the sheet so the unbuttered side is on the inside.
  • Spread one teaspoon of flavored mayo on one side of the sandwich, then top with the cut asparagus.
    This was an inspiration I got from a recipe on All Recipes.com for a simple roasted asparagus sandwich with red pepper, tomato, swiss cheese and lemon mayo on a hoagie. You can make your own lemon mayo thanks to that recipe to give a bit more brightness to your sandwich, but I had a extraordinary ingredient in my fridge thanks to William Sonoma: Truffle Aioli. If you want the richer version without truffle, you might consider roasted garlic aioli, such as what Stonewall Kitchen offers- actually they offer lots of wonderful aioli options, though you can also make your own for the effort and dishes involved I’m willing to buy mine.
  • Cover with your choice of cheese- I used shredded colby jack mix, about 2 tablespoons per sandwich. The Lonely Texan’s original recipe used cream cheese and mixed it with the asparagus, but I didn’t have cream cheese on hand and I am not a fan of warm cream cheese… besides, the thought of the All Recipe and the melted gooey Swiss cheese had resonated with me. It’s up to you how cheesy you want this to be inside.
  • Top the sandwich and on the buttered side that is now on top, sprinkle half the parmesan you have atop your sandwiches (the other half of the parmesan goes on your other side of the sandwich).
  • Place in the oven for about 10 minutes, then flip over put back into the oven until both sides are now golden and the parmesan crispy.
    =

Let it cool slightly, and then EAT

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Sunday Snackies at my house

April 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Putting together a cheese plate- not pictured is the Brillat Savarin (but you saw a photo of it in an earlier post in the box), and also a guest brought a Fra Roussel Cantalet, the ancestor of British cheddars and one of the oldest cheese in France. The cheese in the back is a mixed goat/sheep cheese Causse Noir from the Portland Farmers Market vendor Monteillet Fromagerie which I can remember the location at the market and their cheese and what the guy looks like… but I always seem to mess up their name and substitute other random syllables after “Mont”.

These are also all from the Portland Farmers Market: the seedy bread from Fressen, specifically Vollkornbrot, made of Dark Rye and Whole Wheat flours with cracked rye, Sunflower, Flax and Sesame Seeds; a duck truffle pate from Chop; and kielbasa from Olympic Provisions. I often cut up bread into cracker size pieces rather then serve crackers (although a guest also brought a nice baguette from Grand Central)

I prepared the kielbasa two ways. First I sliced them. Then, on the left I just put it on a pan and let it cook in its own juices til it got a bit crispy on the edges. On the right, I simmered a bottle of beer with I think 1/3 cup of brown sugar until it was bubbly, added the kielbasa and simmered for 30 minutes with an additional 4-6 teaspoons of bbq sauce I think- I did it mostly to taste, and depending on what beer profile you use it will vary. The simmer mixture adds a bit of sweetness to the outside of the sausage- you can add cornstarch to make the sauce stick to the meat like a glaze, but I didn’t want to cover up the already well smoked and flavorful meat too much.

I can never get tired of having cheese, bread, and a little meat with wine. It’s nicer to throw in a little pickled something and fruit as well to round out casual snacks- but since the day before I had gone to the market on my own and brought back several bottles of beverages, there’s only so much I can carry on my own, and uphill to boot. Someone needs to buy me a little cart- not so big that it gets in the way of others at the market, but that way I don’t have to have all the weight in my arms and shoulders. On the other hand, knowing I need to carry everything does keep me in check as I walk around the market on how much I get as well- sometimes I get a little overexcited about what I see without thinking about how quickly I need to eat it to really enjoy it at its peak and take advantage of freshness.  Next Saturday is a special “Bacon Time” edition where I’ll be fancying snacks up with a bacon theme, hopefully the bacon tart will be photogenic.

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