The Sub. Get it right.

Posted by Michael on Mar 31, 2009 in Recipes | 0 comments

Man, I love a good sandwich, and quite often, there’s nothing quite like sinking your teeth into a great big sub.

There’s just no substitute for a meat-and-cheese-and-veggie-and-pickle-packed loaf of bread in your hand.  Two hands if you make them like I do.

There are several chain sub joints that are making a mint because so many people share this same chronic craving for the big sandwich.

I’ve had the sandwiches from most of the big chains and sadly, much like most fast food restaurants, I’m left feeling little more than regret and digestive discomfort (to put it mildly) after most of them.  Oh, and a lighter wallet.  I remember when most subs were about $3.50, with the premium, big meaty ones that truckers ate pushing close to $5.  Now, a 12-inch chicken club sub with a bottle of water will fall just shy of the $10 mark.   That’s not terribly economical considering I can buy a whole chicken at Cochrane’s Market in Rothesay for less than $7.

That’s why when I get the sub craving, the best place by far to grab one is in my own kitchen.  Fresh, high quality ingredients, dirt cheap and far more healthy than hitting the road for a drive-thru.

So let’s talk in detail about the sub sandwich.

The bread

Like any good sandwich, the bread will make or break it.

If you’re lucky to have a fabulous bakery where you live that can put together a baked-that-morning sub bun, then you’ve got it made.    I’ve tried buns from a variety of bakeries around the Greater Saint John, New Brunswick area and unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find something that’s been a keeper, so to speak.   Most loaves are white breads with little flavour and tend to dry out if they’re not used within hours of purchase.  Have you ever bought a baguette from a large grocery store and left it in the bag overnight?  Bam, biscotti.   I’m not sure why commercial breads dry out so fast but it probably has to do with a lack of any kind of fat in the bread.  When I make my bread, I always use either butter or olive oil in the loaf.  Sealed in a simple bag, it’ll last four days and still make a great piece of toast or a sandwich.   So, for my subs, I always make the bread myself.  Check out my recipe for bread by clicking here.   As you’ll see in my recipe, I really like a light whole wheat loaf, something that’s not too heavy but has a great flavour.  You want a bread that’s got more flavour than standard white bread but you don’t want something so wheaty that it’s like taking a bite out of southern Saskatchewan.   I use either quick-rise yeast or traditional yeast in my breads depending on how much time I have before I have to serve up some subs.   The loaf in the picture above was made with quick rise yeast as the request for subs from my three-year-old daughter came at around 2pm on a Saturday and subs were in our hands for 5 pm easy.  If you’ve got the time, traditional yeast-risen dough will have even better yeasty flavour.

Meats

Meats make up the heart of many a sub or any sandwich for that matter and that’s not a bad thing, damnit.   As with all the ingredients in your sub, go for quality.   For cured meats, the higher priced ones are going to taste better and be less salty.  For fresh cooked meats such as steak, chicken or turkey, it’s always best to slice it very thin and pile, fold and curl it on the loaf for volume.  This will produce the illusion of a meaty sandwich while actually using less meat than you would by just laying it flat on the bread. Leftover meats from a roast beef, chicken or turkey are just fine, perhaps preferred, because they’ll presumably be well seasoned and tender.   If you’re cooking meat fresh specifically for use in your sub, just remember to season it with (at least)  salt and pepper before hand.  Bland is as bad as too salty!   Meatballs subs are one of the more popular choices at a lot of places and while my wife finds them about as appetizing as plunging your head into a plugged toilet in an abandoned Mexican restaurant, I actually really like them.   The only trick is that the sauce on your meatballs has to be a lot thicker than the one you’d ladle onto a plate of spaghetti.  So you’ve got to reduce the sauce and meatballs in a pot carefully until it’s pasty-thick, then load that into a sub bun, top with mozzarella, throw it under a broiler to brown then jam the works into your face.   Pure bliss.

Veggies

I don’t usually put much vegetables on a regular sandwich but man, do I love ‘em on a sub.   Red bell peppers, cole slaw and alfalfa sprouts are seen as often as any meat component on my subs.   Fresh vegetables are what provide that all-important crisp-crunch to your sub.  Texture means a lot more than people might think in a good sandwich.   Meats, cheese and bread make for one boring sandwich.  You have to have some veggie crunch in there.  It’s usually best to very finely slice your vegetables.  I like my red bell peppers sliced paper thin and just piled (again for volume) on the sandwich.   Red bell peppers can sometimes be pricey, but you only need a 1/4 of a pepper for a foot-long sub and you can save the rest for an omelet in the morning or a salad tomorrow night.  You might feel a bit like a rabbit for buying a package of alfalfa sprouts but wow, there’s no better use for them than in a sub sandwich.  They give great flavour and great visual volume to your sandwich.

Pickles, happy pickles

Another essential on my sub is some form of pickle.   The standard pickled cucumber is obvious but I also like pickled hot peppers and of course, olives (which are a form of pickle in case you were wondering).   Even my daughter loves black olives.  There’s simply no match for the briney, crunchy flavour a few sliced pickles bring to a sandwich.

Flavoured Lube

Yeah, you heard me.  You’ve got to give your sub a good dose of moisture in some form because we’re talking about a whole lot of relatively dry ingredients packed into a loaf of bread here.   Whether it’s olive oil, butter, mayonnaise or any other spread, make sure something is in there that will moisten the party and make it tastier and easier to eat.  I really like lining the sub bun with mayonnaise, filling it with my ingredients, then giving it an extra squeeze of a simple dressing made of red wine vinegar, olive oil, dijon mustard and salt and pepper.

Seasoning

This is simple, simple, simple but too many people skip it when making a sub or any kind of simple sandwich.   Salt and pepper are your friends here too.  Get it on there.  When using cured meats and pickles to excess (as I’ve been known to do) you can go easy on the salt if you need it at all, but for heaven’s sake get some pepper on that bun.   Fresh cracked black pepper is a flavour enhancer that works as well in a simple sub as it does on a pepper steak.  Get it on there.  Have I mentioned that before?  GET IT ON THERE.