Saturday Sandwich 13: Muffaletta + We're moving!

I'd never heard of this one before but apparently it was invented by a grocer in the French Quarter who saw Sicilian workers buying the ingredients separately for their lunch then created this sandwich to make it easier for them to eat it all. Or to make lots of money from them, one of those! It's basically several different cheeses and meats layered in focaccia bread and topped with an olive salad.


Ingredients: black and green olives, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, red onion, anchovies, olive oil, salami,  mortadella, ham, swiss cheese, provolone and focaccia bread.

Chopping up the ingredients for the olive salad part was interesting. You chop up the olives, onion, capers, anchovies and sun-dried tomatoes to mix together. It felt like I was chopping up all the worst smelling, strong tasting foods I could find to make some kind of poison mixture for my worst enemy. Except the sun-dried tomatoes, they're manna from heaven!

Next you cut open the focaccia and remove some of the bread to make room for the grotesque amount of fillings you're going to put inside. Brush it with some olive oil. Layer the cheeses and meats alternately on the bread. We had to do a bit of substituting with the provolone and mortadella as we couldn't find them.

Spread the olive salad liberally on the top.

Slice in half so you can see the fancy layering effect and then serve. We also added a Lindt egg each, it is Easter after all :D

I didn't know what to expect from the flavour of this sandwich but the last thing I thought was that it'd be good. All the strong flavoured foods seem to be milder when mixed together. The olive salad was a nice texture to go with the smooth cheeses and meats. The most striking thing about this sandwich is how filling it is. The bread is really dense so combined with 6 layers of fillings and a layer of olive salad it's a meal in itself. We made two sandwiches each but only ate one. We still had room for the Lindt egg though!

Ratings: JD - 4/5 Emma - 3/5

WE'RE MOVING!

It's pretty exciting. Especially for the kids as they've never lived anywhere else but here. We've lived on this street since 1996!! We're moving next Saturday so there'll be no Saturday Sandwich next week. Things are going quite smoothly. We've packed up a lot of stuff which is great but now the kids occasionally want a thing we've already packed and the house is full of inconveniently placed boxes (sitting at my computer desk is almost like being in small box fort). The worst thing about moving is having to call round the gas, electric, water etc and tell them we're moving. Most places we've called take the opportunity to gratuitously sell us more of their services. The best thing about it is a feeling of leaving all the worries of this house behind. All the DIY jobs we didn't get done won't matter soon as they'll be someone else's problem.

Hopefully the move goes well, wish us luck :)