Daily Archives: August 17, 2012

Pan-toasted ham and cheese sandwich

2 Comments

Because toasted sandwiches are merely an irregular snack/meal for us, when we do them we like to do them right.

That usually means a good loaf of bread – most commonly some sort of ciabatta loaf.

Good cheddar, too, and ham – but not too good of either.

We tart ours up with onion rings and Dijon mustard, but others’ mileage will vary.

We’ve tried other ingredients, such as tomato, but enough is enough. The tomato was a soggy overload.

In this case, we used a Zeally Bay hightop loaf.

So because the rectangular slices had less surface area than we’re familiar with AND because these sandwiches were going to be the mainstay of our evening meal, I sliced the bread quite thick.

The pan heat is a very variable matter and all down to the kind of bread, its thickness and the depth and number of ingredients.

You want it hot enough to cook your sangers a toasty brown and melt the cheese to goo without taking all night about it.

And without burning the bread.

It’s a balancing act.

Such is life …

Because we don’t have one of those fancy toasted-sanger machines, and we actually like doing them by hand, the layering process becomes important – cheese on last so it gets the heat treatment first.

These sandwiches were a lot more filling than they looked.

 INGREDIENTS

1 loaf of good bread

2 slices of good ham per sandwich

good cheddar

onion slices (optional)

Dijon or other mustard (optional)

METHOD

1. Pre-heat pan on low-medium heat.

2. Slice four slices of bread.

3. Arrange ham on two slices, then the onion slices.

4. Slather mustard on the other slices.

5. Place cheese slices on the onion.

6. Place mustard-slathered bread on the cheese.

7. Butter top of sandwiches.

8. Holding sandwiches firmly so innards don’t cascade to the floor, put them in the pre-hated pan buttered side down.

9. Toast sandwiches, checking regularly to make sure they’re not burning.

10. When nice and toasty on the bottom, butter the top slices of bread and flip the sandwiches with care.

11. Cook and check until done, giving them a blast of higher heat right at the end.

12. Cut sandwiches in half and serve with garnish such as pickled onion, pickled cucumbers or olives.

Luna 1878 – Vic Market at night

4 Comments

Luna 1878 Night Market, Victoria Market

A normal school week requires quite a degree of discipline for us to survive with aplomb.

School, work, school and work lunches, homework, two rugby practices, dinners to be cooked, sufficient sleep to be had, alarms to be set, breakfasts to produced – there’s a lot going on.

But it takes only a slight shift in emphasis, especially in winter, for a nice, tidy routine to become bleak drudgery.

So, of course, we are adamant about taking the occasional opportunity to throw off the shackles and hit the town.

Thus it is we find ourselves happily skipping towards Victoria Market with food and fun on our minds.

There’s been night markets going on here for several years, but this is our first outing – well, our first as  a team anyway; Bennie attended a few years back in the company of others.

The night festival setting is superb and lovely.

The lighting, the gloom, the excited chatter of the punters, the rain pounding on the roof – and most of all the swirling of numerous cooking aromas cooped in by the roof – all contribute to a profoundly glamourous, sophisticated vibe.

We know full well that such a dynamic can distort and inflame the appetite adrenaline and that we’ll probably order a lot of stuff that will fall short of outstanding. And that, in some cases, similar and much better food can be had for significantly less just a few blocks away.

But we don’t let that transgress on our fun as we enjoy a couple of hours of what seems like rather naughty pleasure.

There’s a meatball stall with amazing giant woks of bubbling balls. There’s a Polish stall doing pierogi and the like. There’s wine and beer and even mulled wine.

But the dominant theme seems to be overtly carnivorous, what with American-style BBQ, Argentinian BBQ and Spanish, Sicilian and Colombian stalls all cooking up a storm to a meat beat.

The biggest thrill of the night comes as Bennie spies the ribs at the BBQ stand.

“That’s what I want!” he says with enthusiasm.

They’re also doing pulled pork, but ribs it is – in what, AFAIK, is Bennie’s first taste of this style of food.

At a price of $14 for five ribs plus coleslaw, they’re not cheap but they are good and tender and tasty. And we wangle a sixth rib so we can share equally.

Bennie absolutely loves them, just sharpening my anticipation of the pleasure that will be experienced when I eventually take him to the other side of town for a splash-up meal at Big Boy BBQ.

Calling the rather scraggly and mostly undressed cabbage and carrot strips “coleslaw” is a bit of stretch, though.

Our friends from La Morenita are in attendance, doing chorizo and empanadas and more, but we choose to move on to the less familiar.

We have a $5 plate each of Colombian marinated chicken-on-a-skewer, three cassava balls and a dab of whipped avocado.

The chicken is superb, the cassava nicely chewy, a little bit bitter and very filling.

There’s two back-to-back Asian stalls, one with a Viet flavour, the other Malaysian.

From the former, Bennie grabs and gobbles a small serve of chicken ribs – $5 for four.

From the latter, I secure what is called Sarawak laksa for $10.

It’s a thinnish and nicely spicy broth. There’s a heap of goodies, including lots of rolled-up segments of omelette, but sadly the plentiful and handsome-looking prawns are tasteless.

All the while, Bennie has been agog at the tantalising array of sugary stuff available.

He finally settles on a bretzel from Kingsville’s Bretzel.biz.

His choice is chocolate-filled, topped with nuts and slathered with more chocolate … and he loves every mouthful.

And seemingly every one of those mouthfuls is recorded by a keen photographer who takes a fancy to the spectacle of Boy Eating Dough With Extras.

Appetites finally sated, we wander about for a while enjoying the sights and sounds and smells.

But we head home happy well before the more formal musical entertainment of the evening commences.

After all, it is a school night.

Luna 1878 night markets at Victoria Market will be held on August 22 and 29.