Monday, November 14, 2011

The Triumph of the Toasted Sandwich

The Toasted Sandwich is such an integral part of Mumbai life. Right from school when one begins to discover the forbidden delights of street food, the toasted sandwich has been one of the star attractions.

Since I work from home there's not much street food that I get to eat. What better solution than to bring the street home? Granted, one can never quite replicate those street flavours in a sanitised home kitchen but there are magical flavours to be found at home too.

While the classic road side sandwich is replete with sliced veggies,cheese and spiced potatoes, the home version is more 'gourmet' and can be just as fulfilling.

Bored with the usual oatmeal/ fried eggs and toast/ muesli breakfasts Kurush decided to make something different for breakfast this morning. Of course overcoming the morning inertia took a while and we had brunch instead.

Whole wheat bread with Apple Smoked Mozzarella and slices of Spanish chorizo sandwiched and then toasted in the sandwich toasting contraption that used to be a part of every kitchen in Mumbai. It's not that common these days but it's not that rare either. After all, with the local sandwich wala dishing them out why would you bother making them yourself? But then, he won't be serving these yummy babies that we had for brunch today!





My love affair with the toasted sandwich grew in the years spent in the hostel in Pune. We didn't have the toaster but we were never short of toasted sandwiches. Get the makings together, pull out your trusty clothes iron and a roll of aluminium foil and you're in business. Assemble the sandwich, slather on the butter outside, wrap tightly in foil. Heat the iron up nicely and press down on the sandwich. The heavy irons of our parents' generation would be ideal as you don't have to put on much effort then. Toast both sides nicely, unwrap and take a bite of sheer heaven!

We used slices of salami, boiled potatoes, capsicums, cheese slices, tomatoes, whatever was available and suited our tastes.

Get yourself a simple sandwich toaster and treat yourself today. Simple pleasures in the simple things of life...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

delicious yet easy..will try it.

Kalyan Karmakar said...

Mumbai's toast sandwich is my fav street food snack here...your post reminds me of a summer I'd spent with my aunt...lunches consisted of my putting everything in her fridge into two slices of bread and in a sandwich maker while she went to work...came back and got one at Cal...but wasn't the same fun