[Sca-cooks] Adamantius' tuna sandwich

[Stefan li Rous]

Adamantius described his favorite tuna sandwich in a recent message 
with:
> The undisputed king of tuna sandwiches involves no mayo at all! It's
> a pan bagnat, or bathed loaf, a Nicoise/Provencale thing. It's
> baically a Salade Nicoise hoagie.
>
> You split a loaf of French bread, and rub it inside and out with a
> cut garlic clove, which kind of disintegrates as you rub it on the
> bread. Brush the inside with EV olive oil, then lay in lettuce or
> other greens, sliced hard-boiled eggs, tuna (yuppies eat this with
> grilled tuna, but the traditional standard is dark tuna canned in
> olive oil, and it's just fine with the wimpy solid white stuff, too).
> Add slices of green Bell pepper, cucumber, tomato, anchovy fillets,
> pitted Nicoise olives (Moroccan oil-cured are good, too, and much
> easier to pit quickly), and maybe a ring or three of thinly-sliced
> onion.

As I was saving this message way for future reference, I saw another 
message from him in my sandwiches file (the only other recipe in there, 
so far) and thought some of you might be interested in his further 
description:

> Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 10:48:52 -0500
> From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
> Subject: Re: SC - Sandwiches
>
> LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> > troy at asan.com writes:
> > << Probably the best sandwiches (apart from
> >  the Pan Bagnat I used to sell at La Colombe d'Or and elsewhere, 
> which is
> >  the best sandwich in history)  >>
> >
> > Recipe, please.
>
> There is none to speak of, only a description. The classic pan bagnat 
> of
> places like Marseilles and Nice (in fact the sandwich has often been
> described as a salade nicoise on a baguette) is one of those sandwiches
> - -- there are Italian, French, and probably Spanish versions, 
> although I
> can't be certain of the latter -- which you make a couple of hours in
> advance, wrap, and sometimes even place under a weight to allow the
> flavors to blend. The most common pan bagnat involves rubbing the bread
> with a cut garlic clove, brushing it with olive oil, and piling on tuna
> packed in brine or in olive oil, sliced boiled eggs, sliced onion,
> sliced tomato, red, green or yellow sweet peppers, anchovies, pitted
> black olives (oil-or-wine-cured, not the canned travesties) and some
> greens, often Cos or Romaine lettuce. Optional sprinkle of vinegar. You
> then wrap and press this together a bit, which not only blends the
> flavors, but also moistens and softens the crusty baguette, and makes
> the whole thing a little more cohesive and easier to eat without 
> falling
> apart. Allowing it to cross the line between moist and soggy is to be
> avoided, but this is a matter of experience and personal taste.
>
> I assembled the allegedly four-star version (at least it ended up on 
> the
> menu when the restaurant got four stars from the NY Times, for what
> that's worth) based on various odds and ends lying around the
> garde-manger and grill stations of the kitchen of a Provencale 
> restaurant.
>
> Let's see... we used a lot of tapenade, we made two gallons or so at a
> time, and then there was this sort of modular progression from mayo to
> rouille... we used a lot of real, house-made lemony mayonnaise, half of
> each batch we used to turn into aioli by adding a small amount of
> whipped cream to lighten it a bit, then adding crushed raw garlic and
> garlic confited in olive oil, and some whole threads of saffron. Our
> house rouille  (the spicy sauce served with things like bouilliabaise)
> was the house aioli into which a good shot of North African harissa
> (there is a great influence of the Moors, actually, on Provencale
> cookery) had been beaten, to make it the requisite pinkish, spicy 
> sauce.
>
> Anyway, the sandwich I made occurred when someone asked for a sandwich
> for lunch, and we didn't have any sandwiches on the menu, so I spread
> some tapenade on the bottom half of a piece of baguette (thereby 
> filling
> the olive, anchovy, and garlic requirement), some rouille on the top
> (filling any remaining garlic or olive oil requirements), and then 
> added
> sliced hard-boiled eggs, roasted and marinated strips of red pepper,
> thyme-roasted tomato, grilled and marinated red onions,
> sherry-vinaigrette-dressed mesclun greens, and slices of medium-rare
> grilled tuna.
>
> We sent it out, garnished with matchstick beet frites and more dressed
> mesclun, and half an hour later we got word that the gentleman had
> enjoyed it so much -- he said it was the best sandwich he had ever
> eaten-- he wasn't going to ask us to replace his silk tie, ruined in 
> his
> epic battle with the pan bagnat. We eventually added it to the menu for
> the summer.
>
> Adamantius

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****