The Sputnik -- Salami and Fried Egg Sandwich w. Green Chili Pickle

Today we are going to take a look at a sandwich I invented that I have nicknamed The Sputnik. It combines salami, fried egg and Indian style Green Chili Pickle on rye for a sandwich with a unique, salty and spicy flavour.

For this you want to use some hot Genoa style sliced salami. Put a couple of layers of the salami onto a slice of toasted and buttered rye.


Top the salami with a sunny-side up egg fried in butter. You want to make sure the yoke is nice and runny and that it does not break before you lift it onto the salami.

If you want a tip for making a perfect sunny-side up runny egg, I like to melt some butter over high heat in a saucepan, crack the eggs into the melted butter and let fry for about 30 seconds and then turn down the heat to low (around the 2 mark), cover the pan, and let the eggs fry gently until fully done. Do not flip the egg.

Once you have topped the salami with your egg, top the egg with around a tablespoon (or to taste) of Indian style Green Chili Pickle. There are a number of brands of Green Chili Pickle out there but one relatively common one in North America is Mother's Recipe brand.


Top this with another piece of toasted, buttered rye and press down gently so the yoke breaks and runs down over the bottom on the sandwich.

Eat immediately.

Terrific stuff.

For another terrific sandwich using Indian style pickle see: Montreal Smoked Meat, Lime Pickle and Avocado Naan Wrap

The Oliver: Reinventing a 50's Colossal Salami Sandwich -- Vintage Cookbook TBT

This week I am going to do something a little different for our Left Chapter occasional "Vintage Cookbook TBT" installment.


While The Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Cooking hails from 1986, it is, in reality, more of a throwback to the cookbooks of the 1950's. It has plenty of standard recipes, but it also has a wide array of truly, deeply awful ones -- such as the Superb Sandwich Loaf!

On the other hand, many of the recipes seem to only need a little tweaking. One of those is the recipe

for a huge party sandwich that, for some reason, they called The Oliver.



While the original sounds good -- and looks good even despite the rather terrible photography that also seems to be decades out of date even in 1986 -- I thought a few changes would make it excellent.

This is the original recipe. 

"The Oliver" in its original form.

Our take: first, take a round French or Portuguese style rustic bread loaf.

Cut the loaf in half and top the bottom half with a thin layer of anchovy paste. Then drizzle some extra virgin olive oil over it. 

Top this with a layer of salami slices followed by another layer of spicy salami slices. I used German style salami and Mexican salami as the spicy element.

Top with a layer of Swiss cheese.

Place this half under the pre-heated broiler until the cheese melts.

Cover this with a layer of crushed pimento stuffed green olives.

Add some chopped green peppers.

Drizzle some EVOO over the top half of the loaf and put it under the broiler for about 3-4 minutes.

Cut the whole loaf into about 6-8 wedges and serve.

A delicious take on a Throwback Thursday recipe!