Dairy

Mustard greens and broccoli raab (also called brocoletti di rape, rape, and rapini) are somewhat bitter, a good counterpoint to creamy, subtly flavored ricotta cheese.

In Comfort Me with Apples, Ruth Reichl attributes the original recipe to Danny Kaye, but lemon and cream seems such a simple, natural combination that we suppose people were putting it on pasta long before Danny Kaye was born.

This sandwich came about in our favorite way: by visiting the greenmarket, picking up the cheese, and then meandering through the farmers’ stands to see what fresh offerings might be paired with it. It was June; we came away with beautiful asparagus, red onions, basil, and a rustic bread—all the fixins for an open-faced sandwich on the grill. (If you don’t have an outdoor grill, you can use a grill pan.) Thinking back to the days when cooks in diners put hubcaps atop burgers as they cooked, to steam them a bit, we recommend either closing the grill or inverting a metal bowl over the sandwich to keep the heat in and help melt the cheese. By the way, if you can’t find or do not care for Vacherin, substitute any good melting cheese.

The classic combination of chocolate cake, cherries, and cream found in the traditional Black Forest cake was our inspiration for this cream’wich. In the summertime, fresh cherries can be used in lieu of dried. As is true of all of our ice cream sandwiches, we advise that you make them at least a short while in advance of when you want to serve them. Otherwise, the ice cream tends to squeeze out the sides.

The combination of the chewy cookie and the caramel–cream cheese filling has made this cookie many fans . . . so many, in fact, that though the cookie was originally introduced as a short-term special, our guests wouldn’t permit us to remove it from the menu. But to enjoy it at home, please note that unlike the other two cream’wiches, this cookie does not last long once it has been filled with the cream. It will begin to grow soggy after about four hours.

Perennially popular at Craft are the short ribs braised in red wine. For our ’wichcraft sandwiches, though, we wanted something a bit different, so we chose to braise the short ribs in dark ale with horseradish. The light pickling of the vegetables is so quick there is no time for fermentation; the vegetables retain their crunch and acidity, which contrasts well with the richness of the meat.

This is a sandwich that was so good we had to take it off the menu! Conceptually similar to a cheese steak, it was offered as a pressed sandwich, and when too many people ordered it at once, we had a traffic jam on our premises. So while you can no longer find it at ’wichcraft, you can make it for yourself. Flank steak is wonderfully easy to work with because it’s lean—there’s no waste, and it has an excellent texture for braising. There are many schools of thought about the right wine to cook with. Some advocate cooking with the best wine, or at least a wine that you would want to drink; others believe in using the cheapest wine available. We suggest going with the wine that you can afford to use for cooking or the one you have lying around. At home, whenever he has some leftover red wine at the end of a meal, if he doesn’t drink it the next day, Sisha puts it in a container in the freezer. He keeps adding to that container, and when he needs wine for braising, there it is. The blend is never the same twice—and always good.

While we provide a meatloaf recipe here, we know how particular people are about their meatloaf recipes, so feel free to use your own. You’ll often want to make this sandwich with cold, leftover meatloaf, which is perfect because it’s easier to slice. But how to heat it up without drying it out? This is where the liquid from the tomato relish comes in: Put the meatloaf slices into the sauce and pop them into the microwave or oven. The meatloaf is gently heated, absorbing all the flavor and moisture of the sauce. Now just layer on some aged Cheddar, bacon, if you like, and the tomato relish, and you have a hearty sandwich—the ultimate comfort food.

This recipe is based on a Cuban sandwich traditionally made with roast pork, ham, pickles, Swiss cheese, and mustard. We start with the same main ingredient—the pork. It can be a loin, a ham, even a shoulder, but it should be roasted so that it retains some texture. Then we ratchet things up. In place of the ham, we have coppa, which comes from the neck of the pig and is cured and dried like prosciutto. Standing in for the pickle, we have a pickled pepper relish. The sugar in the recipe cuts through the spiciness and acidity, rounding out the flavors in the relish. Instead of the Swiss cheese in a Cuban, we use fontina. We press the sandwich just as you would a Cuban, and presto! We have what we have nicknamed the Cubano-Italiano.

You’ll recognize this sandwich as a Reuben—with a few adjustments. Chief among them: We believe that mustard is the perfect condiment to cut the salty, sweet richness of cured meats, so we’ve replaced the Reuben’s more prosaic Russian dressing with an easy-to-make mustard sauce. Using really good pastrami sets the tone for the entire sandwich. While the meats you typically find in a supermarket are injected with water, an artisanal product is simply cured, then smoked with real wood chips, concentrating rather than diluting the flavors. And though the product is more expensive, you’ll need far less of it. You can try this sandwich with corned beef, too, especially if you’re in the mood for a milder and less smoky experience.

If you elect to make the sausage yourself, you need not have casings—simply make sausage patties instead. Conversely, if you’re making a recipe that calls for patties and you’re starting with sausages that are already in their casings, what’s to stop you from simply ripping them open and removing the contents? We think you’ll be delighted with the results of grilling the fennel and then pickling it lightly. And while we generally encourage substituting ingredients to your own taste, consider sticking with the recommended arugula here. It adds just the right tenor of spice to this sandwich.

We devised this sandwich partly to challenge ourselves. Usually prepared in advance of its use in a sandwich, chicken loses moisture by the time it arrives there. So we looked for a way to keep the chicken moist . . . and we found it. By slowly and gently poaching the chicken, and then storing it in the poaching liquid until it’s used, we lock in the moisture. (Use this trick whenever you’re preparing chicken for a picnic or for use in a salad—the chicken will be moist and delicious, and without oil, to boot. Further, you can use the poaching broth for soup simply by adding more water, some vegetables, and some of the chicken.) We serve this as a pressed sandwich, but it also works well served cold.

We developed this recipe for this cookbook and promptly vowed to place it on the menu in the coming fall. Loosely based on pumpkin ravioli, it is the sandwich equivalent of comfort food.

This is a straightforward version of the classic sandwich—with a few improvements. We opt for good-quality tuna, we use celery root instead of celery, and we roast the tomatoes to extract the most flavor. Since this is a warm sandwich, the roasted tomato actually holds up better than would its raw counterpart. We think you’ll agree that the addition of the fresh oregano brings out the flavor of the cheese.

This sandwich was a real crowd-pleaser when it was on the ’wichcraft menu, popular with adults and kids alike. Why? Probably because it tastes like pizza! We prepare it as a pressed sandwich, but it also works beautifully grilled in a pan with a little olive oil, or if you don’t want to add any fat, heat it open-faced in the oven until the cheeses melt. The mozzarella is milky and gooey, with a great mouth feel, and the provolone adds personality. Roasting tomatoes concentrates their flavor and caramelizes their sugars; it’s a great way of getting the best of a tomato when it’s not at the height of the season. When herbs are a primary ingredient, only fresh will do. But when they are used as a seasoning, as in this sandwich, dried work very well. One way to ensure you have high-quality dried herbs is to dry them yourself. Take a bunch of fresh oregano, tie it up at the stem end, and hang it upside down to dry, outside if possible, but wherever there is plenty of air circulation. When the herbs are thoroughly dry and the leaves fall off the stems at the touch, crumble the leaves, store them in a jar, and use them as long as the flavor remains strong and pleasing, about 2 months.

While we use a delicious aged Cheddar, this sandwich will be a success with other cheeses, too, as long as they have a big presence, such as a sharp Gouda (no subtle fontinas or mozzarellas); because the cheese is the star of the sandwich, it needs to stand up to the other flavors. Use just enough smoked ham to balance the cheese and poached pear. Use a very thin layer of mustard on the bread, right next to the cheese. The bread in this instance should be something nutty and fruity. The tartness of the dried cranberries in our bread is a great addition to the sandwich, so if you don’t have them in your bread, you could add them to the poaching liquid when you prepare the pears.

This is one of Tom’s favorites, one that showcases how a sandwich can be adapted from a meal. The meal here is French onion soup. Whereas in the soup the onion is the star, with the crouton and cheese to support it, in the sandwich we flip that: the onions serve as the relish. We roast the onions very slowly, caramelizing them, until dark golden brown to balance the assertive and pungent Gruyère. With the rye bread to hint at the Alsatian origin of the soup, we end with something rustic and homey, and yet something that, unlike soup, can be enjoyed while walking down the street.

This delicate little indulgence makes a marvelous treat; cut up into little squares, it’s perfect party fare. We were already considering creating a grilled cheese sandwich with fontina when one of our purveyors came to us with the white truffle fondue. Unlike many truffle oil products, this fondue is made with real truffles. We tried it . . . and loved it. It is the ideal complement to the mellow flavor of fontina and the fresh Pullman bread. We wanted to add some sautéed mushrooms, and chose the black trumpets for their low moisture content and springy texture. If you find them fresh—which can be difficult, even in season—rinse them well to get rid of all the grit.

Eggplant is like a sponge, soaking up whatever moisture it encounters. This, at least in part, is why it is typically breaded when fried—the bread crumbs serve as a shield to limit how much oil is absorbed. In this recipe, however, we salt the eggplant for about an hour to remove excess moisture and then fry it without a coating so it absorbs some oil. Decadent? Absolutely; the eggplant becomes luxuriously creamy and custardy. As buffalo mozzarella is a bit milder and softer than regular mozzarella, it is a perfect complement to the eggplant, but you can use whichever mozzarella you prefer. Interestingly, both the eggplant and the cheese are really the supporting cast in this sandwich; it is the relish that’s the star. The secret ingredient? Anchovies. If you need a purely vegetarian sandwich, leave them out, but they lend a subtle kick, and with the sweetness of the raisins and texture of the pinenuts, you have a picante and assertive relish.