The Earl of Sandwiches

Posted by blogmother on April 11, 2006

The English department store Selfridges has a new sandwich with a price of $148 to match the heft (1 1/3 pounds) of the expensive ingredients inside.
The Selfridges chef--with the ironic last name of McDonald--makes his eponymous sandwich out of everything perfect for the best kind of conspicuous consumption: Wagyu beef from Japan, foie gras, black truffle mayonnaise, brie de meaux, arugula, red pepper, mustard confit and English plum tomatoes.
Care to comment, Mother of Memory?

Comments

Mother of Memory said…

I would care to comment. Now, I enjoy the Japanese beef. So delicious, so expensive. I also enjoy foie. I know it's not pc to do so, but liver is good. Chicken liver, duck liver, beef liver. It's all delicious. I'm not a big mayo lover, but anything with black truffles is good. Cheese? Sure. Arugula? Ok. Red peppers? Hopefully roasted or marinated. Plum tomatoes? Yummy. The only ingredient I don't understand is mustard confit. To confit somthing means to cook it in it's own fat. Mustard seeds don't really have fat. I'm thinking that this might be a cultural miscommunication and what they mean is just mustard. So, let's go through this sandwich layer by layer. It looks like this is made on some good crusty bread so here goes. Assuming that the beef is cooked, and not raw he has mad ethe most expensive roast beef sandwich in the world. He also has a sandwich that doesn't make sense. How can you appreciate the lovely brie if you're being overwhelmed by foie and truffle? Arugula has a delicate pepper taste to it which is completely hidden by the foie, truffle, brie, and possibly red pepper. The tomatoes shouldn't even be on this sandwich. They seem to be there to appease those people who really like tomatoes. Here's how I'd use those same incredients.

The sandwich is beef, truffle mayo, arugula and tomatoes. The desert is brie with the heel from my sandwich loaf. The foie is seared and served for dinner with sauterness and a sweet paste. Perhaps quince. The red peppers get roasted off, and made into a coulis which I will reserve for another time. I could always reserve some of the mayo (before I add the truffles) and make a red pepper aioli. In that case, take the beef off the sandwich, make it a carpaccio (sp?) instead and have the sandwich be veggie. Brie, arugula roasted red pepper coulis. Yum. I've gone on for too long on this. I'm going back to watching King Kong. This movie is reallllllllly llllllllooooooooonnnnnnnggggggg!

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:12:00 AM