The Best Sandwich You’ll Ever Make (Deli-Quality)

Epicurious

In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto demonstrates how to make the best deli-quality sandwich you've ever had at home.

Transcript

00:00 I'm Frank Proto, professional chef and culinary instructor,

00:02 and today I'm gonna show you all the techniques

00:04 on how to make the perfect sandwich.

00:06 We're talking bread, we're talking toppings,

00:08 condiments, texture, flavor, acidity,

00:10 all the great elements that make a perfect sandwich.

00:13 This is Sandwich 101.

00:15 In order to make the most perfect sandwich,

00:18 we gotta start with the most important thing, the bread.

00:22 [upbeat music]

00:24 I think the bread is the most important part

00:26 of the sandwich because the last thing I ever want

00:28 is my sandwich to fall apart.

00:30 With sturdy ingredients like turkey and cheese,

00:33 I have a sturdier bread that will hold them up.

00:35 With lighter ingredients, maybe like a tuna salad

00:38 or an avocado, you want a lighter bread

00:41 because it can handle it.

00:42 They won't fall apart under the pressure.

00:44 I'm using a seeded Italian loaf.

00:46 I have sesame seeds.

00:48 Not only do they add texture,

00:49 they add flavor to the sandwich,

00:50 and that's probably my favorite sandwich bread to use.

00:53 So the first thing I'm gonna do

00:54 is slice my bread all the way through.

00:57 I've seen lots of sandwiches that leave a hinge there,

01:00 and what I don't like about that

01:01 is that people will pile the fillings in the middle,

01:04 and then when you fold this over the top,

01:07 you get a lump of fillings here and no fillings here.

01:10 So I like to open it all the way.

01:12 No hinge sandwiches for me.

01:14 [upbeat music]

01:16 First thing I put on the bottom is the cheese.

01:19 The cheese protects the bread from getting soggy.

01:21 I want it to hold back all the juices

01:24 so that it soaks into the top of the bread.

01:26 I'm using provolone.

01:27 It adds some sharpness.

01:29 It adds some creaminess,

01:30 and it also adds a lot of balance to our sandwich.

01:33 I don't want it to be that flavor forward.

01:34 I want it to be a background flavor.

01:36 I just wanna fill the bottom of the bread.

01:38 You'll notice that I'm trying to get to the edges here

01:41 because I want every bite to be equal.

01:43 A lot of times you see a sandwich,

01:44 everything's piled in the middle,

01:46 and then you have a lump of turkey and cheese

01:49 that's this big in the middle,

01:51 and then you take a bite on the end

01:52 and there's nothing there.

01:53 Cheese is down.

01:54 I'm gonna start with my turkey.

01:55 I'm using a nice deli turkey, sliced, not super thin.

02:00 I like to kind of stack it up a little

02:02 and fold it a few times.

02:03 Layering your sandwich is really important,

02:06 but it's even more important

02:07 if you're using more than one type of meat.

02:09 I'm keeping it super simple.

02:11 I'm using just turkey, but if you have different meats,

02:14 you wanna consider those layers, right?

02:16 You wanna make sure

02:16 that there's not one overpowering the other.

02:19 [upbeat music]

02:21 So I have my turkey layer on my sandwich.

02:23 I have really nice pieces of romaine here.

02:25 You can use iceberg.

02:27 I like romaine.

02:28 It gives crunch.

02:29 It gives a little freshness,

02:30 and I like to shred it nice and fine.

02:33 If I have a whole leaf of lettuce,

02:35 I'm gonna take one bite.

02:36 The lettuce is gonna come out in that one bite.

02:38 If I shred the lettuce,

02:39 I get that beautiful bite every single time

02:42 throughout the sandwich.

02:43 The next layer on this sandwich is the onion.

02:45 Now, I choose red onion.

02:47 You can use white onion.

02:48 I think people eat with their eyes sometimes,

02:51 and red onions are beautiful.

02:52 Put 'em on your sandwich.

02:53 Make your sandwich prettier.

02:55 And I wanna try and slice this as thin as possible.

02:58 I'm not putting a ton of onion on.

03:00 I want onion flavor,

03:02 but I don't wanna go out into public

03:03 and everyone smell my onion breath all day.

03:06 And again, when we layer our sandwich,

03:08 we wanna make sure that there's a little bit of onion

03:10 in every single bite.

03:12 The next thing we're gonna do is use tomato.

03:15 I have something called a crumado or a brown tomato.

03:18 Tomato adds moisture.

03:19 It adds acidity.

03:20 It adds texture.

03:21 It adds so much to the sandwich.

03:22 Don't be afraid to use them,

03:24 but you don't wanna overload on the tomato

03:26 because it also makes your sandwich slippery.

03:28 Put your tomatoes side by side.

03:30 Don't stack them together.

03:31 If you do stack them together, what's gonna happen?

03:33 Everything's gonna slide apart.

03:35 Condiments and dressings are really important

03:39 because you don't want your sandwich to be dry.

03:41 You want it to have some texture, some moisture, some flavor.

03:44 You want all the elements to be in balance.

03:46 And I'm using here 100% olive oil,

03:49 not extra virgin olive oil.

03:51 If we use extra virgin olive oil,

03:52 it's gonna be really strong.

03:54 And for the most part, we want a little olive oil flavor

03:56 with some of the fat and moisture from the olive oil.

03:59 I'm using a nice red wine vinegar.

04:01 Again, don't overpower.

04:02 Don't use too much.

04:03 Vinegar adds acidity to our sandwich.

04:06 The cheese is rich.

04:07 The mayonnaise is rich.

04:09 The tomatoes have acidity,

04:10 but the vinegar is gonna bump that up

04:12 and give us some balance

04:13 so our sandwich does not get boring.

04:15 A common pitfall when you're making a sandwich

04:16 is people don't think you need to season it.

04:19 Anytime we make food to eat, you should season your food.

04:21 I'm gonna use a little salt and pepper

04:23 right on top of my tomatoes.

04:25 There are thousands of different condiments

04:27 you can put on your sandwich.

04:28 I like to use Hellman's mayonnaise.

04:30 It's just been a standard in my life since I'm a child.

04:33 I like to put my mayonnaise directly on the bread.

04:36 And what this does is it makes a little rain jacket

04:39 for my bread.

04:40 Mayonnaise is made from mostly fat,

04:42 so the mayonnaise is gonna stop my sandwich

04:45 from getting soggy.

04:46 You wanna spread it all the way to the edges.

04:49 I don't mind if the bread soaks up

04:50 a little bit of the juices,

04:52 but at the end of the day, I don't want it to be a soggy mess

04:54 and then we can top the sandwich.

04:56 Nice and easy.

04:57 I don't want everything to fall apart,

04:58 so just press it down lightly so it holds together.

05:01 If you're worried about everything falling out, too bad.

05:04 Sometimes when you shred things, things might fall out.

05:07 That's just an extra snack after you finish your sandwich.

05:10 [upbeat music]

05:12 Believe it or not,

05:13 how you cut a sandwich is important as well.

05:15 With this sandwich, a little less so,

05:17 but if you had a square sandwich,

05:18 you really wanna consider how you're gonna cut it.

05:20 Do you wanna get that best bite possible

05:22 in every bite of your sandwich?

05:24 I use a serrated knife in a sawing motion.

05:27 You don't wanna just wrench down on that sandwich

05:29 and squish everything.

05:30 I'll reserve this half for a good friend.

05:32 Cut the other part in half.

05:34 One thing I like to do also when I plate up

05:37 is that we wanna see those fillings.

05:39 So we put the fillings facing out

05:40 towards the person you're serving the sandwich to.

05:43 Some of the other considerations I have

05:44 when I make a sandwich

05:45 is what am I gonna serve on the side of it.

05:47 I like dark russet potato chips.

05:49 They're a little bitter.

05:50 They're nice and dark and caramelized.

05:52 I love 'em.

05:53 I think they fit really well with my sandwich.

05:55 And then pickles.

05:56 I like these little kosher grills, tiny pickles.

05:59 They don't have all the seeds in them and stuff.

06:01 This is kinda like as you bite your sandwich,

06:03 you take a bite of the pickle.

06:04 You alternate all those textures and flavors.

06:07 And there you have it.

06:08 This is a perfect sandwich.

06:10 No sandwich is complete without a drink.

06:12 Get your stance ready and take a bite.

06:14 That was the perfect bite.

06:17 And why was it a perfect bite?

06:18 Because we were intentional about the layers that we made.

06:21 We were intentional about the ingredients we chose.

06:24 Nice sharp cheese, crunchy lettuce,

06:27 soft and juicy tomatoes, a little bit of acidity,

06:31 a little bit of fat.

06:32 All that comes together to make that perfect bite.

06:35 As long as you follow this format,

06:37 no matter what ingredients you choose,

06:39 you can make a perfect sandwich.

06:40 (whooshing)

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