The Book of Sandwiches

Description

Calling all sandwich lovers! Take a bite out of this drool-worthy cookbook and satisfy your every sandwich craving.

Who doesn’t love sandwiches? And who wouldn’t love this mouthwatering cookbook of 85+ recipes for sandwiches of all kinds?

Chances are you have a favorite sandwich, or maybe two, or six, or ten! We can all agree that sandwiches are fun; they’re delicious, they’re comforting, and they’re as easy to make as it comes. In short, sandwiches are a damn good thing.  

In The Book of Sandwiches, you’ll find sandwich recipes for every day of the week and every week of the year. Sandwiches for comfort food cravings, for quick meals to grab and go, even for high-impact (low-key) ways to impress your friends. (Make someone a great sandwich and you’ve got a friend for life!) Inside are sandwiches for late nights when the hunger hits, and for the next morning when your energy is low . . . Try the very best new versions of well-known sandwiches, plus tons of truly inventive ideas for sandwiches you’ve never thought of before. Included are recipes for: 

• The Classics: Enjoy fresh takes on the quintessential sandwiches we all love, like timeless grilled cheeses, a simply sensational toasted tomato sandwich, and the beloved BLT. 
• Breakfast: What better way to start your day than with a sandwich? Here are options galore—egg, cheese, avocado, bacon, sausage, or even homemade granola (granola in a sandwich?! Just you wait!).
• Chic: Dial it up a notch with stylish (dare we say fancy?) sandwiches like The Wild Duck, the Soft-Shell Crab, or our beautiful cover model, starring fried chicken.
• Open: Ditch the tops for these delicious and beautiful rule-bending recipes.
• Burgers: If a beef, turkey, chicken, fish, or portobello mushroom burger isn’t a sandwich, then what is?
• Hot Hot Mess: Indulge in sandwiches like The Meatball, the Ragù for You, and even the It’s a Hawaiian Pizza Sandwich—just remember the napkins!

• Sweet: Satisfy that sweet tooth with ice cream sandwiches, cookie sandwiches, and whoopie pies aplenty!  

Page after page, this book’s mouthwatering photography unveils the potential of everyone’s favorite food, with recipes you’ll be running into the kitchen to try. This really is the book of sandwiches.“I’m a sucker for a well-named recipe and a cookbook that reads like a book! With a little bit of history, a whole lot of heart, and deliciousness on every page, let’s raise a toast to the new Earl of Sandwich, Jason Skrobar!”
—MARY BERG, host of Mary Makes It Easy and The Good Stuff with Mary Berg

“The humble sandwich is the star of the show in this playful new book. This quintessential food becomes the jumping-off point for stories about love, fun, family, and friends, reminding us all of our own sandwich memories, while inspiring us to get creative in the kitchen. After reading this book, your sandwiches will absolutely taste better—and you’ll have more fun making them.”
—PATI JINICH, chef, cookbook author, and PBS TV host of La Frontera with Pati Jinich

“What this engaging book does is take us beyond what’s contained between two pieces of bread and bring us flavors and deliciousness from around the globe. The Book of Sandwiches shows us so many possibilities for reimagining a mealtime staple.”
—BONNIE STERN, cookbook author

“Jason Skrobar is the best sort of friend to have with you in the kitchen. He makes beautiful things, considers every detail, is utterly enthusiastic about the process, and yet is never so rigid in rules that take away from the fun of cooking. Beyond those good feelings, The Book of Sandwiches delivers on flavor, and then some. These are sandwiches at their most creative and generous; Jason elevates even the most basic and pulls out all the stops when the occasion suits.”
—TARA O’BRADY, food writer and author of Seven Spoons

“It’s rare for me to page through a cookbook and want to immediately dive into every single dish, but The Book of Sandwiches did it. Filled with mouthwatering recipes for both classics and true originals, as well as sweet family stories, fascinating historical tidbits, and tantalizing photos, Jason has created a real treasure of a book.”
—CAMILLA WYNNE, author of Jam BakeJASON SKROBAR has spent over 25 years working in food, first in restaurants as a dishwasher, line cook, server, host, and manager, then he transitioned out of restaurants and became a food stylist and recipe developer for the last 15. He quickly became a fixture on the television food styling scene, with stints at CBC shows Best Recipes Ever, In the Kitchen with Stefano Faita, and Steven and Chris. He followed that up with work at CTV on The Social, The Marilyn Denis Show, and Your Morning, where he is also an on-air food expert. He has been featured in several publications, including the New York Times and Toronto Life. A lifelong sandwich enthusiast, Jason gets excited at the mere thought of all the joy this book will bring to fellow devoted sandwich lovers.Excerpt from the Introduction
I remember sitting at our kitchen table when I was 6 or 7 while my mom made us her version of grilled cheese sandwiches for me and my brothers, Greg, Paul, and Ryan. She used fresh-baked pita from the market, luxurious European butter (my dad immigrated to Canada from Slovenia and loved it), and cheese from the cheesemonger (no prepackaged cheese singles in her kitchen!). It was simple, sure, but watching her make those sandwiches and then eating one—the crunch of the toasty, buttery pita, the melty and oozy cheese, and (some may wholeheartedly disagree with this) the sweetness of lots and lots of ketchup (hey, I was a kid after all!)—was pure joy. She often made us what we called grilled pitas, and as I grew up, I in turn made them often as well. Experimenting a bit here and there, they may not all have been hits, but I think my mom’s grilled cheese pita is where my love of a good sandwich started.

Food can sometimes be a bit polarizing: Do you like cilantro? (Does it taste like soap to you, or is it a refreshing, citrusy punch of flavor?) What about anchovies? (Love their salty, briny qualities, or loathe them because you were taught they don’t belong on pizza and have never given them another try?)* Wherever you stand on these things, and many others like them, it seems the one food people can agree on is the sandwich—whether it’s a PB&J, a grilled cheese, a meatball sub, or a freaking burger.** People agree that the sandwich is a damn good thing. A perfect thing, indeed. Think about it. What’s the best thing you can eat for breakfast? A sandwich. What do you eat for lunch? A sandwich. What do you eat late at night? A sandwich. What do you eat when you are hungover? A sandwich. Sandwiches are comforting. Sandwiches are fun. And sandwiches have the ability to bring people together. Make someone a great sandwich, and you’ve got a friend for life. I kid, but you get the point.

People everywhere eat sandwiches every single day. Canadians alone eat more than 3.6 billion sandwiches each year; 11.5 billion are consumed annually in the UK; and Americans—by far the most significant consumers of sandwiches in the world—eat 45 billion of them every 365 days! That’s a lot of sandwiches. And we haven’t even touched on the rest of Europe, or Australia, Asia, Africa, or South and Central America, where sandwiches play a massive part in the culinary lives of so many people who live there.  

I like to think outside the box when I make sandwiches, and I hope this book will help you do the same. I remember visiting friends Morgain and Gary a few years back when I was in the UK. We went out to the pub and the kitchen was closed, so all we had to eat were a few bags of crisps (or chips, as we call them here in North America). Upon returning home, I took it upon myself to make my hosts the best sandwich I pos-sibly could to satisfy our now all-consuming hunger. (Thankfully, their fridge had a pretty impressive amount of ingredients to choose from, but that’s beside the point.) Wondering what I made? It made it into this book: The Wild Duck (page 98). It was a beautiful concoction of different ingredients and my friends still say it’s the best sandwich they’ve ever had, and hopefully, when you make that sandwich, you will agree.  

Just like with anything you do often enough, monotony in sandwich making can be a real thing, so I’m excited for you to come on this ride with me and experiment a bit. Flipping through this book and seeing a recipe for a za’atar egg salad sandwich with fresh herb salad (page 31)(there’s that cilantro!) or a lobster roll with anchovy mayo (page 109) (there’s that anchovy!) will hopefully inspire you to step up your sandwich game a little bit—and open your eyes to the idea that a sandwich can be anything you want it to be. Let’s be honest; we’re not curing cancer here, so this book is really about having fun, enjoying some great recipes, and learning a few new things along the way.  

I make my grilled cheeses a bit differently now (as you’ll find out in the recipes in this book), but every once in a while, I’ll make one just like my mom did—yes, ketchup is still involved, but now mixed with some hot sauce—and it takes me right back to where my love of sandwiches began. So thanks, Mom!

Happy sandwich-making, friends, and let’s meet up at the end and exchange notes.  

* Seriously, folks, give the damn anchovy a chance! Your sandwich (and pizza, salad dressing, or roasted vegetables) will love you for it! 
**Is a burger a sandwich? Don’t worry, there’s a whole chapter dedicated to that question.CN

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