Balls and Walnuts
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The art of the chicken hoagie
This is one of those (nearly) infinitely variable recipes that is quick, easy, delicious. Just gotta build it right.
The bread: bolillos or hoagy rolls, toasted on the barbecue or under the broiler. You can toast them unsliced, so that they’re crispy on the outside soft on the inside, or you can toast ’em open-faced, crispy all over.
The chicken: breast meat, of course. I prefer breasts that have been sliced so as to make them thinner. “Un-thinned” breasts don’t cook quickly enough and tend to ball up as they cook. Too much of a mouthful.
The additions — a few of the following: provolone cheese, fried onions, onions grilled on the barbecue, bacon (essential), avocado, tomato, sauteed mushrooms. You can even get a little clever — pineapple cooked on the barbecue, chorizo, jalapenos, blue cheese.
The preparation: two ways to do the chicken. Begin by sprinkling both sides with ground pepper and salt.
1. Brown the chicken breasts on both sides in a frying pan. Cast iron, if well seasoned, works best.
2. Grill on the barbecue. Tonight, I laid bacon on the grill and cooked the chicken on top of the bacon until the bacon started to burn. Great way, though, to keep the chicken from sticking to the hot grill.
Then just put it all together. In my opinion, there’s no need for mayo. The sandwich is moist enough that you don’t need gimmicks like that.
It occurs to me that an identical sandwich substituting grilled shrimp for chicken would be very tasty indeed.
D.
Bacon = essential. You are not alone in this assessment.