Remove the chicken from the oven.
Plate the chicken with tongs. If you used toothpicks, remove them (eating one as a surprise is a bad deal).
Drizzle the chicken with the Dijon sauce from the saucepan, making sure to get extra sauce beside the chicken roll-up. There’s no such thing as too much sauce.
Serve with broccoli, cauliflower (both later in the book), and/or mashed potatoes.
Fucking hell, these are good.
Enjoy.
SECTION FIVE
SANDWICHES AND SUCH
Killer Reuben
Chili Veal
The Cuban
Double Grilled Cheese
Grilled Breakfast Burrito
Avocado Toast
Hawaiian Pork and Pimento Cheese
KILLER REUBEN
TIME: It’s a sandwich.
What you’ll need from the cupboard: A large skillet, a spatula, a fork, and a couple of paper towels.
What you’ll need from the pantry: A partial loaf of Dave’s Killer Bread 21 Whole Grains and Seeds (if you aren’t already eating this bread, you should start). A jar of Bubbie’s Spicy Sauerkraut. Thousand Island Dressing. Swiss cheese slices (I prefer Baby Swiss). Sliced Boar’s Head Corned Beef (you can substitute Pastrami if you’ve got a hatred for corned beef).
The Reuben is my all-time favorite sandwich. I’ve made them many ways and with many breads. Typically, they’re made with rye bread. Some use marbled rye. I prefer the Dave’s Killer Bread for this sandwich.
Put the skillet on the burner and turn to medium.
Unscrew the lid to the sauerkraut. Get your fork handy.
Fold one of the paper towels over, and then over again (making it one-fourth of its original size, and 4x as thick).
Take 2 slices of bread and butter each side. Spread Thousand Island dressing on the face of slice number one (the side without butter on it).
Add two (side by side) slices of swiss cheese (Dave’s bread is LONG).
Add a thick helping of corned beef. It’s always best to put it on there in a ridiculously ugly wad. Neatly stacking the meat in even layers that look pretty is dumb as fuck, and it’s not Reuben-like at all. The meat wad is best here, believe me.
Using your fork, get a healthy helping of the sauerkraut. Holding it over the folded paper towel and squeeze out the excess liquid (nobody likes a mushy Reuben).
Evenly layer the sauerkraut on top of the meat. Add two more slices of swiss on top of the kraut.
Spread the Thousand Island dressing on slice number two.
Place slice number two onto the top of your creation, salad dressing side down.
Grill this masterpiece in the skillet for roughly 3 minutes a side, or until cheese is melted and the sandwich is golden brown.
With these ingredients, this is a little bit of a spin on the classic Reuben. I will say that EVERYONE who has happened into my home has had one of these at some point, and 100% of said people now ask for them by name. In fact, my wife won’t eat a Reuben made with regular sauerkraut. If it’s not Bubbie’s, she won’t have it. Yes, I’ve made these at 10 pm for random bikers just to see their expression.
Derek and Big brother Alec are the same way. It’s Bubbie’s or bust.
Also, by using Dave’s Killer Bread, you’re supporting two ex-cons.
Me, and Dave.
Hahaha.
Enjoy.
CHILI VEAL
TIME: It’s a fried fucking sandwich. This one will take a minute or two.
What you’ll need from the cupboard: A large skillet, a rolling pin, a cutting board, a mixing bowl, 3 plates, a saucepan, a pair of tongs, and a spatula.
What you’ll need from the pantry: Pork loin or boneless chops. Saran Wrap. Saltine crackers. Salt. Pepper. Paprika. Chili powder. Garlic powder. Flour. 2 eggs. Vegetable oil. Tabasco (or Cholula, or Louisiana) A good hearty hamburger bun, not some cheap shitty fucker. Not here. Save those for when you have company. Here, you need a good bun. A big fucker, too. Chili Veal’s are a man’s sandwich (Jessica loves them, too). Sliced American cheese. Hormel Chili without beans (no substitutes).
So, there’s a decent little story behind this one. My father grew up in Leon, Kansas. A small town of 150 people, Leon offered little for the few who lived there. Granted, it was the 1950s and people didn’t need much, but it offered little, nevertheless.
El Dorado, Kansas was 12 miles of 2-lane narrow blacktop away. My mother lived there. At the time, she wasn’t my mother. She was my father’s crush. My Pops was only 16 at the time, and he didn’t have a car. All he had was a pair of Chuck Taylor sneakers. So, he ran the 12 miles to El Dorado along that narrow road each time he wanted to see her.
12 miles there, and 12 miles home. He was a cross country runner, so it wasn’t a big deal for him.
Well, in the town of El Dorado, there were 2 things he loved. My mother, and a veal sandwich. El Dorado was a small town, too, so the sandwich and my mother weren’t far apart. All he had to do was stop in at a little diner called Ball’s Lunch for the sandwich. The local Bail Bondsman, DA Ball, owned the joint.
It was there that he sold a sandwich called the “Chili Veal.”
Funny thing about the Chili Veal. It wasn’t veal at all. It was pork. Most didn’t realize it. Hell, maybe they didn’t care. If you ever asked DA, he’d tell you straight up. It was fried pork loin. That was the only ingredient that he’d tell you about, though. The rest was a mystery.
Anyway. My father loved it. On his way to my mother’s he’d always get one. Then, on the way home, he’d get another. Built like me (tall and lean) he could eat like a horse without worry of gaining wight (unlike me).
After high school, he joined the Marine Corps, married my mother, and moved to San Diego. He said he loved Southern California, but he missed that veal sandwich.
When I grew up in that area 30 years later, I went to DA Ball’s restaurant 3-4 times a week and ate that same sandwich. When I was 45, I’d pick them up and take them to my father on the weekend (as with many of the male characters in my books, we did the Sunday dinner thing for most of my life).
Well, DA Ball has since died. The sandwich, however, lives on.
I never got the recipe from DA. He wouldn’t give it up. This tastes just like his creation, though. As close as I can get, anyway.
Okay, here we go.
Dump a large can of Hormel Chili in your saucepan. Turn to low heat. Don’t add anything. Just the shittiest chili known to man.
Put 1/2” of oil in the skillet and put it on the burner you intend to use.
Beat the 2 eggs in the mixing bowl.
Crush the crackers and put them on a plate. It’s okay if there are a few bigger pieces. In fact, there needs to be a few. Just a few.
Put about 1/2 a cup of flour on a plate. Add a teaspoon of salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. Add another teaspoon of pepper. Mix well.
Trim all the fat from the pork.
Place the pork on the cutting board (somewhere close to the flour, eggs, and crackers).
Cover the pork with Saran Wrap and beat it like it owes you money (with the flat edge of the rolling pin, of course). Beat it to about a 1/2” thick. The thinner, the better. You don’t want it to be any thicker than a 1/2”, that’s for sure.