Recipes

Photo from The Good Cook 'Snacks & Canapés'

Weird sandwiches

Ever read of a sandwich recipe in a book or a magazine and thought: "Eugh, that sounds gross". Ever found yourself, then, despite the initial reaction, being tempted to make the sandwich? Ever discovered, then, that the seemingly eugh mess is, like, well, utterly yummy.

Here are three of those sandwiches, and, whilst we can vouch for the first two as being utterly, magnificently scrumola, we haven't as yet been able to bring ourselves to make and eat Paul and Maire Flynn's, eh, challenging combination. But, as James Thurber would have said, we are amused by its presumption and we only hope Mr Flynn's second cookery book, due out in a few month's time, will have more wild sandwich workouts.

Tapenade and black pudding with tomato

This is a recipe taken from Sue Lawrence's excellent "Book of Baking", published last year by Headline, and a book which any self-respecting baker needs to have in the kitchen. Mrs Lawrence is a magnificently intuitive cook, and this sandwich is taken from her recipe for tomato and tapenade tart.

But, it was her note in the introduction that intrigued us: "As I adore black pudding in a soft bap or ciabatta roll with a smear of tapenade and a slice of tomato. I thought it might convert into a tart nicely; in my opinion it does".

Aside from the tomato and tapenade tart, a sandwich of black pud, tomato and tapenade has become a staple hunger-assuager in Megabytes Central. We take some nice bread, toast it lightly, then smear it with the tapenade, topping this with pan-hot slices of black pudding. Slices of ripe tomato are piled on top, and another tapenade-smeared piece of toast goes on top to finish.

Smoked salmon, mango chutney and bacon

It sounds strange, but this is actually one of the great sandwiches, an uncanny balancing act between saline salmon, salty bacon, and sweet chutney. We came across this first many years ago in the late, great Jeremy Round's book, The Independent Cook. The idea, however, comes from Victor Gordon's English Cookbook: Thickly cover one piece of hot, lightly buttered toast with smoked salmon. Spread thinly with mango chutney (I prefer lime pickle, added Mr Round, but we disagree with him on that). Lay several rashers of hot, crisply grilled streaky bacon on top and sprinkle with cayenne pepper. Cover with another slice of hot, lightly buttered toast".

Mr Gordon reckons the sandwich should be accompanied by "heroic quantities of very pink gin". Sounds good to us.

Paul Flynn's marmalade and soft-boiled egg sandwich

"One of the greatest eggy treats in the Flynn household happens on Sunday mornings with the papers", writes Paul Flynn in his book, The Tannery Cookbook, An Irish Adventure with Food."Boiled egg and marmalade sandwiches. Take two slices of buttered toast, spread with orange marmalade. Boil some eggs (soft of course). Scoop out the eggs and spread generously over the toast. Sprinkle with salt, sandwich together and eat with plenty of napkins. This also works very well with thinly sliced brown bread. I'm afraid I can't take credit for this particular sandwich. That goes to Máire but I am hooked and I think you should know".