My Pan Bagnat

I've always fancied having a go at doing a pan bagnat but was never keen on the filling that is traditionally used. The two fat ladies do something similar but with steak and onions and call it the shooters sandwich. The thing I was looking forward to the most was wrapping it up and pressing it under a couple of bricks!

I started with a round bread called pain de champagne, I doubt there was any champagne in it but it was the nice round shape I needed. I cut the top off and reserved for later to use as a lid, then hollowed the bread out.

Instead of butter or spread I used pesto to cover the base and lid, then I begin to fill it. Mozzarella went in, followed by salami, this was covered by rocket, then some creamy garlic mushrooms I had made, followed by more salami, topped with the last of the mozzarella, then some sun blushed tomatoes with their oil and finally the lid. I thinrk next time I would buy a bigger loaf of bread I reckon the more you put in it, the better it will be; or maybe I am just greedy!

It was then wrapped it up in greaseproof paper, tied with string and placed it in the fridge where it was pressed under my griddle pan and 2 bricks from the garden.
The much awaited unveiling produced quite a flat sandwich, perhaps 2 bricks was 1 too many! When it was cut into quarters it made for quite a pretty sandwich. We both enjoyed it, me three quarters more than Richard (yes I did eat 3/4s of it but not all at once!) Richard pointed out that he wouldn't put pesto at the bottom again as he felt it was a bit soggy in places.
I think it's something I would certainly do again perhaps trying different fillings, we came up with a list of things we would like to try:

meatballs, tomato sauce and cheese

chicken stroganoff

BLT, but that would take some amount of bacon.

Tuesday 6th April - Fish Finger Sandwiches

Sometimes only a fish finger sandwich will do.

Brown bread spread with dairylea, rocket and fish fingers.

As Gordon Ramsey would say "Job Done!"

Monday 22nd March - Chicken sandwiches

Having cooked steaks on Sunday due to not eating them on Saturday, Sundays dinner was then bumped to Monday night. I still cooked it on Sunday which meant when I came in from work on Monday it was nice and easy to prepare!

Since reading the recipe for Chicken roasted with 40 cloves of garlic down by the blogger Helen on Food stories and then watching her turn it into the best sandwich she had ever tasted I knew I had to have a go.

So I browned my organic chicken in the pan first before putting it in my roasting tin with 3 heads of garlic, 200mls of oil and some thyme. A good season of salt and pepper, covering it with foil and into the oven it went!











On Monday Richard took all the meat off the carcass, I made homemade mayo with 2 egg yolks and the cooled olive from the chicken. Mixed this with the chicken meat.

The garlic cloves I squeezed out of their skins and put on the rolls, topped it with the meat and bobs your uncle, dinner was served. I topped mine with rocket, Richard didn’t – it’s too girlie for him! Delicious!