The "Mr. Williams" Sandwich

There is a very cliched saying about how you can’t go home again (Well, ok, that actually is the saying, isn’t it?).  I think it’s usually in reference to how things are always changing and evolving. We can’t expect relationships and moments in time to stay the same forever, and the changes are always most noticeable after some time and distance away.  

But sometimes, it just means you can’t buy your favorite sandwich anymore. 

Deep stuff, I know.

My previous job was located in a different neighborhood in San Francisco from where I work now, in a quiet, mostly residential corner of the city downhill from North Beach, where quick, convenient lunch options came to a grand total of three, or two, if you cared about things like quality and price. That’s why, whenever I chose to buy lunch, I would usually find myself at this little window cafe in an alley near the office, waiting in line for a pressed panini of filo-breaded fried chicken breast, roasted red pepper, avocado, and manchego. The sandwich was named after Williams-Sonoma founder Chuck Williams, and though he passed away last year, while he lived I hope he was proud to have such a wondrous sandwich named in his honor. And it was popular. There was nothing less torturous then standing there, starving, and hearing “Mr. Williams!” called out again and again while the line inched slowly closer to the counter. 

Tragically, after a year-long office relocation while our building was seismically retrofitted, we returned to our sleepy neighborhood to find that little window cafe had closed. Sure, there were other food options in the neighborhood now and yeah, we all were no longer in danger of certain death by earthquake, but sometimes I felt like the tradeoff there was too much to ask. We came back “home”, but one of the few things that made that job bearable for me was gone. I’m not saying I quit that job a few months later over a sandwich, but it was one less reason to stay.

But, make some lemonade, right? Or in this case, make a sandwich! My version is a bit simplified for the home cook, but just as tasty as I remember. Chicken breast gets coated in bread crumbs and quickly pan fried to golden perfection, the piled on some good bread with roasted red pepper, manchego cheese, and a generous amount of avocado. The whole pile then gets pressed into crusty, melty goodness and then devoured. It’s good enough to erase the sting of loss, and easy enough to repeat as often as necessary. Because I’m all for reminiscing and reflecting on how we change and grow, but also, I just want my damn sandwich already. 

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"Mr. Williams" Sandwich

Inspired by the now-defunct Pip To Go window

• 1 chicken breast
• flour
• bread crumbs
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 egg
• olive oil
• 1/2 avocado, thinly sliced
• 1 roasted red pepper
• a few slices manchego cheese
• brioche bun or crusty roll
• bit of mayo
• bit of dijon mustard

1. Bread and fry the chicken. In a bowl, stir together a spoonful or so of flour with salt and pepper, about a pinch of each. Cut the chicken breast in half through the middle to create two thinner cutlets. Place chicken pieces in the bowl and coat with the flour.
2. In a second bowl, beat the egg, and pour some breadcrumbs onto a plate. Dip the dredged chicken pieces in the egg and then roll around in the breadcrumbs, pressing into the crumbs to evenly coat.
3. In a skillet over medium heat, put about 1/4 cup olive oil and heat until it shimmers. Add the chicken pieces to the pan and fry until golden on each side and cooked through.
4. Build the sandwich: split the roll in half and swipe a bit of mustard and mayo on each half. Lay the chicken pieces on the bottom half and top with the pepper, cheese, and avocado.
5. Grill on a panini press or in a heavy skillet, topped with another skillet weighted down with something heavy. Serve hot. 

Notes:

• I know there is avocado on here but the truth is I made this sandwich months ago, and avocados were in season then. Now, I’d substitute with something else, because what about the butterflies?

Coke & Butter Marinated Steak Skewers

So, remember how I said I grilled the entire butcher’s case in Tucson? Obviously that was hyperbole, but I did spend an afternoon throwing meat on my Dad’s grill, including an entire whole chicken. But before I got to the bird, I started first with a little “light appetizer” of these steak skewers. They were more of a first lunch, really, but if you can control yourself and serve these to more than two people, you’ve got a fun party food, or an easy weeknight dinner on your hands if you can’t.

I don’t know this for certain but I assume that most families who grill regularly have a go-to, family recipe or method for how they treat their steak. In my family, it was always a marinade made from the humble, easy to assemble combination of melted butter and Coca-cola. Growingup, whenever my mom went out of town, my Dad and sister and I were off to the store for a six pack of coke and some thin cut steaks. When we got home, my Dad would fire up the grill, mix up the room temperature coke and some melted butter, season the steaks and then throw them on the grill to be slowly cooked while painting them with the coke and butter mixture. The end result was a well-done, caramelized piece of steak that was tender and buttery and charred and to this day still my favorite way to have a steak, and also the reason I get so mad when I go to a nice steakhouse or restaurant and I’m told I can’t possibly order my steak well done and have it come out tender. I KNOW this isn’t true and I get impatient with chefs who don’t bother to even try.

But, this is not a story about how I’ve gradually been forced over the years to learn to like a medium-well steak. This is a story about how I thin cut a rib eye into strips, and then took that coke and butter mixture and soaked my steak in it, then wove the strips of meat onto skewers and quick grilled them into some of the tastiest meat treats I’ve ever had! Or made, but I don’t really cook steak that much so it wasn’t hard to top that list. But these steak skewers are tender, charred, sticky, and buttery. What more could you want?

These skewers make it so you can take a sub-1 lb rib eye and turn it into a meal for four with a quick salad of arugula and parmesan served underneath, and as the hot steak sits on top the salad slowly wilts in a very agreeable way, and no one will mind that they didn’t get a steak the size of their plate. As a party food, it would be fantastic too, as you can grill up a ton of these in a flash and face it, guests always love food on sticks.

All credit to the Coke and butter marinade goes to my Grandpa, who I hear is the one to introduce this mixture to the family. Where he got the idea, I don’t know, but it was brilliant, that I do know.

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Coke & Butter Marinated Steak Skewers

Makes 8-10 skewers.

• 1 lb boneless rib eye steak, or a little less
• 4 tbs butter
• 1 1/2 -2 cups coca cola, room temperature
• salt and pepper
• small wooded skewers, soaked in water for 30 minutes

1. Heat your grill to high. Trim the steak of larger chunks of fat and then cut lengthwise into long strips about 1/4 inch thick, and season generously with salt and pepper.
2. Melt the butter in a large bowl in the microwave, then add in the coke and stir to combine. Add the seasoned meat and marinate for 5-10 minutes.
3. Thread each strip of steak onto a skewer, then grill for a minute or so on each side, until a good dark sear is formed and steak is cooked to desired doneness. These won't take long as they are cut thin.
4. Serve with lightly dressed greens if desired, though these are certainly fantastic on their own.

Notes:

• use whatever kind of coca cola you have, as long as it's not diet soda. Cane sugar based drinks may caramelize a little better, but we made this with regular, corn-syrup based soda my whole life and it always worked fine.
• I call for a rib eye here because you need a good, tender cut of meat. You are cooking these quickly, so there really isn't time to slowly cook a tougher cut of meat into submission. But one steak feeds many this way, so splurge on the good stuff!

Grilled Roast Chicken with Ancho Scallion Butter Rub

Roast Chicken Project #10 - Grilled Roast Chicken

Wait, what is happening? How can you have roasted chicken from a grill? Isn’t that an oxymoron or something?

Probably not. I don’t know, grammar police help me out! But you can certainly have roasted chicken that is cooked on a grill, because what is a grill but a huge outdoor oven? That is exactly what it is, with the capability of adding good, dark sear marks and a little smoky somethin’ somethin’ to your food. It’s magic, is what it is, and when I have the chance to stay in a place with a grill, I make sure to take full advantage of it. That’s why I could be found last week in my Dad’s backyard in Tucson, grilling up the contents of the butcher case at the grocery store.

I exaggerate, of course, but I did make sure he knew I wanted to try roasting an entire chicken on the grill, NOT SPATCHCOCKED, but whole and intact, the way every cooking show/personality/food blog/Jenji Kohan acolyte would tell you NOT to do it. I wanted the challenge, and to see if it could be done and still have juicy white and dark meat and crispy skin, and I didn’t prefer to have to cut apart the raw bird first. And anyway, this is exactly how my Dad cooks his Thanksgiving turkey every year, so this would be a fun, father-daughter experiment on a smaller scale, and a good test run of the grill before the turkey.

Of course, I didn’t go in without researching first, and in the few recipes I found for grilling whole, non-flattened birds, I found good advice about oven temperature and heat source placement, and so I took that info and got to work.  I took a deep breath, plopped a chili and scallion butter-rubbed bird right into the middle of the grill, closed the lid, then headed inside to distract myself for 45 minutes while my chicken hopefully turned bronze and crispy, instead of igniting and flaming up into a charred husk with a raw inside. 

And there was no fire! At the halfway point, I opened the grill top to discover a halfway roasted chicken not unlike the previous 7 or 8 I’ve roasted this year. I flipped it over, covered it again, and danced back into the house to wait out the remaining cooking time. Slightly more than a half hour later, by the time the smoky fragrance of grilled, crispy meat began to waft inside, I knew this was going to be a good bird. And the grill lid lifted again to reveal one of the most beautiful roast chickens I’ve ever seen, burnished to the color of a 90-year old Palm Springs native after decades in the sun, with a slight, charred tinge to the edges I couldn’t wait to tear off with my bare hands. I distracted myself from drooling during the rest period by clipping roses from the garden to fancy my chicken up for photos, then dismantled that baby and tore in.

It was goooood, ok? It was perfectly cooked, with the legs and breast all finished and juicy, all covered in a crackling, buttery skin holding a slight heat from the chiles. I mean. I’m converted, and I would definitely do it again! Except, oh wait, I don’t have a grill. But if you do, you should try it! The lack of cleanup is a huge bonus too. Also a bonus? My dad learned a few tips from this experiment and a couple days later produced THE BEST Thanksgiving turkey any of us at dinner had ever had. Not too shabby. 

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Grilled Roast Chicken with Ancho Scallion Rub

Rub adapted from Food & Wine, cooking method from Epicurious

•  2 dried ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded
• boiling water
• 4 tbs unsalted butter
• 1 clove garlic
• 4-5 scallions, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 whole, 3-4 lb chicken

1. Heat the grill: if using a gas grill, light 1 burner if a 2-burner grill, or if a 3-burner grill, light only the 2 outside burners, leaving the middle burner off. The grill should be between 350-400 degrees. If using a charcoal grill, only heat one side of the grill.
2. Make the rub: In a skillet, toast the dried chiles for a minute or two, then transfer to a small bowl and cover with boiling water. Let soak for 15 minutes, then drain and let cool.
3. Add cooled chiles to the bowl of a food processor with the butter, garlic, and sallions and pulse to combine into a paste. 
4. Season the chicken generously with salt and pepper, sprinkling some inside the cavity. Rub the chicken all over with the ancho scallion mixture. Be sure to rub as much of the mixture as you can under the skin as well as in the cavity and all over the surface of the skin.
5. Place the chicken on the unlit part of the grill, breast side down. Grill for 45 minutes, covered, then flip the chicken breast side up. Grill, covered, for another 35 minutes or until an instant read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh reads 165 degrees.
6. Remove chicken from grill and let rest for 10-15 minutes, then carve and serve.