brussels sprouts -

by BS

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

– Everyone has their own addition to America’s best new sandwiches. Mike:

All these look great, but nothing beats the Steak Poutine Pita from U-Need-A-Pita in St. Catharines ON. Steak, Cheese, Fries, and Gravy all in one pita.

Canada:

If you’re ever in Orlando, FL you’ve gotta check out Pom Pom’s teahouse and sandwicheria. The Mama Ling Ling’s thanksgiving dinner sandwich is absolutely phenomenal

What’s yours? Keep the great sandwich list going, and we may have to publish a sequel post. On another note, TimD stands up for the meat-or-die crowd:

What the Hell Do You Make with Lentil Puree?

Unless it’s mashed potatoes, I’m not into a side of mush. I once made a butternut squash-pumpkin-ruttabaga puree as a side to a cabbage hash, but that was once. Just once.

And now I possess a large bowlful of lentil puree. At first I wanted to make a lentil salad, but when my lentils tasted bitter, I doused them with soy sauce and threw them in the food processor for a prompt whipping.

I rolled the first batch of the puree, with slightly cooked and soy-flavored cabbage, into spring rolls. The rolls were then topped with a dipping sauce of grated carrots (using a microplane), sesame oil, sesame seeds and more soy sauce.

But the appetizer used only a third of the lentil puree. What to do? I googled “lentil puree” and found an idea from The Sneaky Chef.

Lentil Patties with Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Carrot-Soy Sauce

And I just want to put this reminder out there – I mess around in the kitchen. I love telling you what I’ve made and how I do it, but there is no exactness to my cooking. Take it as a guide.

America’s Top 10 New Sandwiches

Forget who piles pastrami highest or fits the most varieties of cold cuts onto one hero roll. A great sandwich has come to mean more than just bigger, better and meatier. Across the country, a new breed of sandwich artisans are taking lunchtime to a whole ‘nother level. From California to New England, here are Endless Simmer’s top ten favorite new sandwiches.

10. The Spuckie — Cutty’s, Boston

Spuckie is a term used by old-school Bostonians to identify any sub sandwich, but it’s increasingly associated with this year-old Brookline shop. It’s also probably the one sandwich that most successfully merges the old-school method of overdoing it on Italian meats with the new world of artisan, veggie-centric goodness. Super-thin slices of fennel salami, hot capicola and mortadella are layered on an oversize ciabatta, then topped with gooey, hand-pulled mozzarella and a fresh olive-carrot salad. For even less traditional sandwich-lovers, there’s also an eggplant spuckie available.

9. Bulgogi Steak Sandwich — Koja, Philadelphia

At the risk of outraging an entire city, we’re going to say it: the Philly cheesesteak is boring. With no disrespect meant to the age-old art of slathering fake cheese on top of a mound of meat, we just think this is one classic sandwich that is ready for a creative update. Enter University City sandwich truck Koja, where the chewy cheesesteak meat is replaced with bulgogi, Korea’s signature thinly-sliced, spicy BBQ beef. It’s served on a hoagie roll that’s coated in sweet chili oil and accented by sauteed peppers and onions. Koja also offers bulgogi pork and bulgogi chicken variations, but the best part is the unbelievable price — $3. Read more about this amazing sandwich at My Inner Fatty.

8.Crispy Drunken Sandwich — Baguette Box, Seattle

Have you ever dug into a steamy styrofoam container of General Tso’s chicken and thought, “this is delicious, but it would be even tastier on a bun?” Of course you haven’t, that’s the most insane thing we’ve ever heard. But crazy is sometimes genius, as is proven at this tiny Seattle sandwich shop, where hunks of tender chicken are deep-fried and glazed in a tangy brown sauce, then served on a crispy baguette with caramelized onions and cilantro. The result is a supremely sticky, but utterly satisfying sandwich. (Photo: Sevius)

7. Cheesy Mac and Rib — The Grilled Cheese Truck, Los Angeles

Another new West Coast outpost that achieves genius results by thinking outside the bun, LA’s great cheese-on-wheels purveyor offers several list-worthy grilled sandwiches, but none is more awe-inspiring than this. Sharp cheddar mac-and-cheese, strands of sweet BBQ pork and caramelized onions are all stuffed into two perfectly buttered-and-fried slices of white bread. Yes, it sounds like the horrifying 3 a.m. creation of a stoned college student. Yes, it actually works.
(Photo: Grilled Cheese Truck)

6. Pibil Torta — Xoco, Chicago

Upgrading Mexican street food has suddenly become a hot task of haute chefs around the nation, although the results often have us pining for the real thing. Not so at Rick Bayless’ Chicago sandwich shop, where tortas baked in the wood-burning oven take Mexican to levels we didn’t know existed. In this sandwich, silky strands of roasted suckling pig are served on crusty bread spread with black beans and achiote paste, then finished with a layer of pickled onions and habanero salsa. The Pibil may be one extra ingredient away from being a Top Chef disaster story, but as is, it’s perfection on bread.

Next: The top 5

in Breakfast / Cheese / Featured / Fowl / Lists / Pig / Red Meat / Sandwich / Veggie 49 comments

by gansie

Boiling Away Hate

I totally get why little kids would think spinach is gross. Most probably share my first vision of spinach: Popeye drinking dark green goo, out of a can, and then beating the shit out of people. It was totally weird and random. Did spinach bring out rage in sailors?

Eating vegetables, let alone drinking them, was just not on my things to do list (which included making my oma judge my many productions of a My Little Pony beauty pageant. Moondancer always won.)

But I still don’t get what gives veggies a bad rap in general. And some more than others. Carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, there’s really not that much angst against them. But brussels sprouts? It’s like they’re so hateful that they’d rather stop helping the homeless than let two consenting adults build a life together.

Why are brussels sprouts so hated?

They’re pretty cute, actually. Adorable little bulbs with pretty, pale green petals. They’re not scary, weapon-like spears like asparagus. They’re not slimy with a clinical and unappetizing sounding name—fungus—like mushrooms. They don’t splooge juice like a tomato. Brussels sprouts are small and neatly compact.

Why all the hate?