Thumbing through one of my favorite cookbooks the other day, Deborah Madison's Local Flavors, I came to the stunning realization that I hadn't yet had one of summer's best treats this year. Madison presents a tomato sandwich of epic porportions, made in a hollowed-out round loaf of bread, layered with herbs and oil and cheese and...Shoot. I never go to that much trouble on a tomato sandwich.
Here's mine: Sliced nice bread (we're kinda stuck on PANoRAMA from the farmers' market; this time we used their sweet batard). Slather with mayo (c'mon, admit it, you use Best Foods; I do). One layer of sliced cukes (found some amazingly crisp, obscenely huge Armenian cucumbers from a guy who grows them in Nicasio; no peeling required). One layer of sliced, drippingly ripe tomato. Shower with salt and pepper. Cover with the second piece of bread.
Now here's the money shot: Serve this sandwich on a paper plate, or even better, a styrofoam plate. I don't know how these ozone-killers ended up in my house — probably leftovers from a potluck picnic (I'd never buy them myself) — but, ever-so-voilà!
Eat.
Lick juices running down arm.
Shut up.
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12 comments:
I dont use mayo (I promise Im not lying!) but I do make a similar sandwich with cilantro-green chili chutney. Your photo is making me crave one! Yay for lingering summers and fabulous sarnies :-)
This sandwich makes me wish I liked raw tomatoes. What if they were roasted instead?
Around here, Duke's Mayo (made in Virginia..."The Flavor of the South") is the only way to go. The s.o. always claimed to dislike mayonnaise until he discovered Duke's.
Do you agree with me that it is IMPERATIVE that the tomato be layered directly next to the mayo in the sandwich, so that the juices can mingle with the mayo?
where's the pickle???? you gotta have pickle!!
In order:
tanvi -- that's rather fancy. I guess I'd have to have the chutney already on hand (sounds Indian, right?). So to combine your sandwich idea with kathyf's,
kathyf -- Sure! Roasted sounds delish. Smear them with some cilantro-green chili chutney! ;) Or, make what I call "cheese dreams": broil the tomatoes on toast and melt cheese on top.
jamie -- Yeah, Saveur even did an item on Duke's. Is it different? Hm-hm, you must mingle so you get the imperative pink "sauce."
monkey gland -- I might be too inflexible to alter my recipe *that* much.
Duke's is richer, eggier, and no sugar or corn syrup of course (which there is in certain quasi-mayonnaises). It almost tastes like "real" mayonnaise. Truly head and shoulders above the competition.
Everybody: Look at the photo Duke's Mayonnaise chooses to run on its product page:
Tomato Sandwich!!
(Yeah, she admits sheepishly. There's sugar in Best Foods.)
OK. I now know what I'm having for dinner.
I can't imagine a tomato sandwich looking any better than that one you've got posted.
And, yes, we've got about four jars of Best Foods Mayo in the fridge. They keep hiding behind six packs of beer, tricking us into thinking we've run out.
Rozanne: Yeah, and you've got about 20 pounds of tomatoes on hand! Yeearrgh! [Howard Dean scream]
I can only brag that, this year, my tomatoes began ripening in JUNE! But they's about done now.
That oveflowing bowl of tomatoes on my blog is from August 31. I'm down to about 12 now, which are sitting on my counter (half of which are green) and I'm rationing them out very carefully.
I haven't pulled up the vines yet and there are still a few smallish green fruits I didn't harvest, but overcast skies, rain, and temps that didn't manage to crack 60 today suggest that they will never amount to anything. Oh well.
Well, if they don't ripen, the obvious choice is to make fried green tomatoes.
Also, last year we tossed all the unripe little cherry tomatoes into a jar of pickled pepper juice (in the fridge), and they became nice "tomolives." But they turn khaki-colored after a couple of months, so drink lots of martinis early on!
:D
(There's your pickle, Monkey Gland!)
Oh, also, Rozanne: Today the SF Chronicle did a taste test of commercial mayonnaises, and the winner was a new one from Best Foods made with canola oil...
I love that tomolive idea. And I do, indeed, have a bunch of green cherry tomatos!
I am psyched!!! Thanks.
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