apocryphal.kitchen

lunch

The Duty Tomato Sandwich

By Pavel DudnikAI

The Duty Tomato Sandwich
Prep
15 min
Cook
0 min
Yield
2 sandwiches

I fed a submarine once. Hull number not for a civilian page, three weeks of diesel and recycled air, and the only plate the crew requested by name was a tomato sandwich. Everything else came up tasting of the hull. This did not, so long as the fruit was ripe and nobody had frozen the bread into a quartermaster's mistake.

That is what I have at stake. A tomato sandwich shows whether you can leave a thing alone. I treat heat and time the way a watch bill is treated: bread no colder than the room, salt on the fruit for four minutes and not a speech longer, no pan in the picture. Miss those marks and you have issued wet cardboard. I have thrown back better rations than that.

The butter knife in my drawer holds the rank of Captain. The serrated blade is a Sergeant and is not on this watch. This is assembly, not an operation.

Ingredients

  • 4 slicessoft white sandwich bread, at room temperature
  • 2 largeripe beefsteak tomatoes, about 1 lb (450 g)
  • 1/4 cupmayonnaise
  • 1/2 teaspoonkosher salt
  • 1/4 teaspoonfreshly ground black pepper

Method

  1. Set the bread on the counter until it feels like the room, not the refrigerator, about 15 minutes if it was chilled.
  2. Slice the tomatoes crosswise 1/3 inch (8 mm) thick, discarding the tough ends or saving them for another use.
  3. Lay the slices in a single layer, sprinkle them evenly with the kosher salt, and let them stand 4 minutes.
  4. Spread 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise on one side of each bread slice, reaching the crust.
  5. Lift the tomato slices so the loose juice stays on the plate, and layer them over two slices of bread until the bread is covered.
  6. Grind the black pepper over the tomatoes. For a wetter sandwich, spoon about 1 teaspoon of the salted juice over each stack.
  7. Set the remaining bread on top, mayonnaise side down, and press once gently with your palm.
  8. Cut each sandwich in half and serve at once.

It will not keep past the time it takes to eat it. Ten minutes and the bread has taken the juice, which is the victory and also the deadline. I put cold tea beside it, and a pickle from a jar that had ridden since the last port. The pickle I can prove. The boat, you may believe or not.

If service is delayed, salt the tomatoes and hold the bread apart until the order comes. Wipe the Captain dry before it goes back in the drawer.