I am away celebrating a daughter's birthday and have asked Skidmore senior and great friend to the Saratoga Farmers' Market, Andrew Plotsky, to do the recipe this week. I discovered Andrew's wit and love of simple fresh vegetarian delights by chance when he submitted a wonderful discourse on making Adirondack Dash mashed potatoes. Feedback from our readers was so positive I am giving Andrew another recipe in this column and you, our readers, another taste of his simple, farm-fresh food sprinkled with humor.
Ingredients:
2 slices bread of choice (the
sunflower bread from West
Village Market is excellent)
Mustard greens (a handful -
enough for a nice sandwich)
Kilpatricks' and Pleasant Valley
Farms have two varieties right
now, one stronger, one
milder - your choice
Sprouts
1 Macoun apple
Cheese (optional) - try Revival
from the Argyle Cheese Farm
Coarse grain Dijon Mustard
Olive Oil, one (1) drizzle
Salt, (Kosher)
Pepper (freshly ground, black)
Directions:
Slice your bread. Or, if it has already been sliced, toast it ever so gently. If you choose, you may leave the bread untoasted. If you opt for the former, I urge you not to over toast your bread, as it will destroy the nuances of flavor this sandwich possesses.
On one slice, give a drizzle of olive oil. Onto that drizzle, grind some freshly ground black pepper and sprinkle a small amount of kosher salt. (Kosher salt is milder and yet more robust in flavor than regular iodized table salt.) Also note that you want to salt and pepper your bread after the oil because the viscosity of the oil will adhere the flavor bits to your bread. On the other slice spread a very thin layer of your mustard.
Before I go on to the good stuff, I would like to remind you of the centuries-old saying: "to each their own sandwich." I am merely sharing with you my method to the madness. If your religious affiliation forbids more than one-quarter inch of greens on a sandwich, by all means, use less. That being said, I like to use a healthy amount of mustard greens. I also generally use the spicier of the two (or if I am feeling really wild, I will use both), so lets say seven to eight leaves/sprigs. Rip them in half or in thirds so that they fit nicely to the size of the bread. Place on the slice with the olive oil.
For sprouts, I recently found out that Four Seasons sells various seeds that you can buy for mere cents and grow on your own! It is brilliant! So go to the store - above the salad dressings there are jars with seeds. They have a mix that is alfalfa, radish, red and green lentils and broccoli seeds. That's what I used - the young seeds brighten up the sandwich with a subtle spiciness to the background of the mustard and have a great hollow, watery crunch. Load up the slice of bread with mustard on it with your sprouts.
Slice the apple super thin, nearly as thin as you can go. Put the apple slices on either slice (it doesn't matter as much, because the apple won't be interacting directly with the flavors spread on the bread). Slice the cheese similarly, thin slices and put on the other slice.
Now, for the assembly: The side with the apples, stare it down. You need to show it that you are in charge of this operation. If you let the sandwich know for one second that it is in control, when you go to put the sides together, the apples and sprouts and mustard will try to escape, and you will end up with scattered sandwich bits all over your kitchen. Take the half with the apple, and using the apple slices as a mechanism, to keep the other ingredients tethered to the bread (read: high surface area per slice = easy to flip cleanly), flip it over and place on the other slice.
Always cut your sandwiches in half, or not, to each their own, right? I happen to have a quality knife that glides through any sandwich like pudding. If you are working with a blunt object similar to that which our ancestors used thousands of years ago to cut their sandwiches in half, I offer this tip. Start in the middle. Plunge the tip into the middle of the sandwich, and using a gentle sawing motion, work your way out to the side of your choice. Repeat going the other way. The last thing we want after laboriously crafting our lunch is to blow it all by mushing out the sandwich guts on the cutting board.
The Rundown
• toast bread
• mustard one side, olive oil
other (s&p)
• sprouts one side, greens other
• apple one side, cheese other
• put together
• cut in half
• chow down
Eat well,
Andrew
BTW, if you come to the Saratoga Farmers' Market this Saturday, 9-1, at the Salvation Army Building on Woodlawn Ave, you will be able to meet and hear Andrew as he and his friends will be providing live musical entertainment!
2 slices bread of choice (the
sunflower bread from West
Village Market is excellent)
Mustard greens (a handful -
enough for a nice sandwich)
Kilpatricks' and Pleasant Valley
Farms have two varieties right
now, one stronger, one
milder - your choice
Sprouts
1 Macoun apple
Cheese (optional) - try Revival
from the Argyle Cheese Farm
Coarse grain Dijon Mustard
Olive Oil, one (1) drizzle
Salt, (Kosher)
Pepper (freshly ground, black)
Directions:
Slice your bread. Or, if it has already been sliced, toast it ever so gently. If you choose, you may leave the bread untoasted. If you opt for the former, I urge you not to over toast your bread, as it will destroy the nuances of flavor this sandwich possesses.
On one slice, give a drizzle of olive oil. Onto that drizzle, grind some freshly ground black pepper and sprinkle a small amount of kosher salt. (Kosher salt is milder and yet more robust in flavor than regular iodized table salt.) Also note that you want to salt and pepper your bread after the oil because the viscosity of the oil will adhere the flavor bits to your bread. On the other slice spread a very thin layer of your mustard.
Before I go on to the good stuff, I would like to remind you of the centuries-old saying: "to each their own sandwich." I am merely sharing with you my method to the madness. If your religious affiliation forbids more than one-quarter inch of greens on a sandwich, by all means, use less. That being said, I like to use a healthy amount of mustard greens. I also generally use the spicier of the two (or if I am feeling really wild, I will use both), so lets say seven to eight leaves/sprigs. Rip them in half or in thirds so that they fit nicely to the size of the bread. Place on the slice with the olive oil.
For sprouts, I recently found out that Four Seasons sells various seeds that you can buy for mere cents and grow on your own! It is brilliant! So go to the store - above the salad dressings there are jars with seeds. They have a mix that is alfalfa, radish, red and green lentils and broccoli seeds. That's what I used - the young seeds brighten up the sandwich with a subtle spiciness to the background of the mustard and have a great hollow, watery crunch. Load up the slice of bread with mustard on it with your sprouts.
Slice the apple super thin, nearly as thin as you can go. Put the apple slices on either slice (it doesn't matter as much, because the apple won't be interacting directly with the flavors spread on the bread). Slice the cheese similarly, thin slices and put on the other slice.
Now, for the assembly: The side with the apples, stare it down. You need to show it that you are in charge of this operation. If you let the sandwich know for one second that it is in control, when you go to put the sides together, the apples and sprouts and mustard will try to escape, and you will end up with scattered sandwich bits all over your kitchen. Take the half with the apple, and using the apple slices as a mechanism, to keep the other ingredients tethered to the bread (read: high surface area per slice = easy to flip cleanly), flip it over and place on the other slice.
Always cut your sandwiches in half, or not, to each their own, right? I happen to have a quality knife that glides through any sandwich like pudding. If you are working with a blunt object similar to that which our ancestors used thousands of years ago to cut their sandwiches in half, I offer this tip. Start in the middle. Plunge the tip into the middle of the sandwich, and using a gentle sawing motion, work your way out to the side of your choice. Repeat going the other way. The last thing we want after laboriously crafting our lunch is to blow it all by mushing out the sandwich guts on the cutting board.
The Rundown
• toast bread
• mustard one side, olive oil
other (s&p)
• sprouts one side, greens other
• apple one side, cheese other
• put together
• cut in half
• chow down
Eat well,
Andrew
BTW, if you come to the Saratoga Farmers' Market this Saturday, 9-1, at the Salvation Army Building on Woodlawn Ave, you will be able to meet and hear Andrew as he and his friends will be providing live musical entertainment!
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