Bacon, Lettuce and Pickles

It's the top of the summer for fruits and veggies in the market. Why would we make pickles out of all this lovely fresh fruits and veg? Because pickles taste delicious. Pickling enhances the natural flavour of fruits and veg with a bright burst of vinegar, salt and sugar. Use your quickie pickles to bump up your ramen, spike a drink or make an epic summer BLP sammy.

Making quickie pickles is easy! Here is a recipe for our basic brine you can pour over pretty much anything you feel like pickling. 

To assemble your epic summer sammy you'll need. 

 - big slabs of hearty sourdough bread

- gobs of mayonnaise

- loads of crispy bacon

- a bouncy pile of fresh lettuce

- your choice of quickie pickles

 

Bake your bacon, preheat your oven to 350˚. Spread your bacon into a single layer on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake until bacon is perfectly even and crispy, place the bacon on a piece of papertowel so it crisps up more.

Assemble your sandwich.

Liberally smear your bread with gobs of mayonnaise.

Scatter on your quickie pickles, pile up the lettuce, and now it's bacon time. Close your sandwich or leave it open faced. 

Eat this sandwich in the garden.

 

Like bacon?

 

 

Like pickles?

 

Some things never go out of taste style, and for me that's a perfectly squashed juicy beefy book binder's sandwich! And, it's a perfect sandwich to eat with our beefy tee, Well Done, Done Well.

That's me acting beefy in our latest design...getting ready to drip some juicy beef on my shirt.

Make it as beefy as you like, serve with pickles and you've got yourself a classic.

the book binder's sandwich

Excerpted from Escoffier!

Cut off the crusts from the ends of a sandwich loaf leaving at least  1/2 inch of bread on them. Grill a thick steak, well seasoned with salt and pepper; allow it to cool then spread it with mustard and  horseradish.

Butter the crusts, put the steak between them and tie up with string. Wrap it in several sheets of clean absorbent paper, place in a press and tighten it gradually before leaving it for 30 minutes. When removed it will be seen  that the inside of the sandwich will be saturated with the meat juice which the outside crust has prevented from escaping. The string and paper are removed and the sandwich is then wrapped in greaseproof paper or placed in a box with a lid.

Don't have a book binder's vice from the 1500's? No problem. Here's my homemade 'book binder' sandwich squasher, filled with water for weight.