BLT Sandwich

We have already presented our version of a club sandwich and also explained how you can prepare some sauces for sandwiches yourself. And they always taste better than the industrially produced products.

Equally classic is the BLT – which stands for “Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato”. It’s as simple as it sounds, but serves as a great canvas for us to describe many techniques. Here we go:

Very little of the “bacon” is enough for us in this sandwich, because it’s all about its flavor. And we intensify it with Japanese teriyaki sauce, which is very easy to prepare yourself.

If you don’t want to eat bacon, then smoked tofu is the best choice. We would cut it into thin slices and marinate it in the teriyaki sauce for at least 30 minutes before frying it. If you want to replicate bacon with vegan ingredients, search for “rice paper bacon”. However, we are not keen on such imitations.

For the simplest version, you only need Japanese soy sauce and half as much of sake, mirin and sugar. You can also season teriyaki sauce with ginger, garlic, sesame seeds and other aromatics, but for today’s preparation you only need the basic version. To do this, mix the three liquids with the sugar and heat the mixture until it boils, stirring constantly. The sugar will dissolve completely. Then leave the sauce to simmer gently over a low heat for 15 minutes to reduce – done.

A BLT definitely needs mayonnaise. We have also explained how to make it yourself in our recipe for the club sandwich.

For the Japanese version, we simply add light miso paste. This must be mixed with egg yolk, salt, mustard and vinegar, the basic ingredients of a mayonnaise, until completely homogeneous, before adding oil slowly and in a thin stream.

The other ingredients are of course (the right) bread, (the best) tomato and (the correct) salad.

We like to use Italian-style white bread, which produces nice big slices that we cut in half, brush with a little olive oil and fry in the grill pan until crispy.

The tomatoes should provide as much flavor as possible and contribute as little liquid as possible, which would only make the bread soggy. We therefore use ox heart tomatoes, which contain a lot of firm flesh. We cut them crosswise into slices of approx. 1 cm and sprinkle a pinch of salt and sugar on both sides. This enhances the tomato flavor and allows the slices to lose some of their liquid.

We use iceberg and young romaine lettuce. We place one or two individual leaves of the latter on the sandwich. From the iceberg, however, we cut a slice about 1 cm thick, like from a loaf of bread. This creates an even and particularly crunchy topping.

Opinions differ when it comes to bacon. Madame Chilipepper wants it crispy, even very crispy. So we put strips of bacon in a cold pan and add a few splashes of water.

The bacon will actually be much crispier than without the water. Heat the pan on a medium heat only. The water helps to render the fat from the bacon. It then evaporates. And from then on, the bacon starts to brown.

We have also explained the alternative preparation in the oven in our recipe for club sandwiches. Finally, we switch off the pan, add a little teriyaki sauce and turn the bacon in it. It continues to reduce in the residual heat and quickly coats the bacon strips with sweetness and umami.