Spaghetti Sauce Sandwich

I was alerted by my blog/Facebook friend, Simon, that this weekend was Sandwich Party #5, which is pretty self-evident. Make a sandwich. Share on your blog. Well, I went to Stockton and took Grandma and Aunt Flo to Sizzler on Saturday, and dined on cheese and crackers on Sunday, so I didn’t get around to making a sandwich for the party until Monday. I thought about trying to do something fancy with arugula and brie or something, but decided to go retro instead.

When serving spaghetti, some people mix the noodles together with the sauce in one big serving bowl, while others serve the noodles plain, and top them individually with sauce. I find that doing things the latter way tends to make gloppy noodles, but that’s how I was raised. Serving your sauce separately leads to lots of leftover sauce, and no leftover pasta. What to do? I discovered one day that if I took some of the sourdough bread that we had, slathered it with butter and garlic powder, and fried it, it made a delicious garlic bread, which is the perfect place to put a bunch of warmed spaghetti sauce. It’s a lot like a sloppy Joe, actually, though I like the flavors of spaghetti sauce better. My mom thought this was a disgusting idea, until she finally gave it a try, and became an instant convert. She always said that sane people are willing to change their mind when they are given the proper evidence, which this sandwich clearly is.

For this sandwich, I started with a lamb ragu, which I made for the gnocchi we had last week. I tend to mix my sauce and pasta, to avoid the gloppy noodles, but this recipe makes more sauce than a pound of gnocchi can accommodate, so we had some left. I’ve updated the recipe a bit, in that I now mix the meat in the Cuisinart with a slice of bread and a couple of tablespoons of milk before browning. It keeps the meat from getting hard or too chewy, which is a trick I learned on America’s Test Kitchen. Luckily, we had one really nice sandwich roll in the freezer, so I took that out, thawed it in our handy toaster oven, and then sliced it, and slathered it with butter and garlic powder.

Next, I toasted the bread by frying it, butter side down, over medium heat.

It comes out slightly crispy and smelling fabulous.

Then you cover one piece of toast with some hot spaghetti sauce, and if you have it, a sprinkling of fresh Parmesano Reggiano.

Finally, cover with the other piece of toast, slice in half, and enjoy. A perfect sandwich. I was torn between a glass of milk and a diet coke for my beverage. I had the diet coke, but I think it would have been better with a glass of milk. Oh well.

That’s it. Next time you find yourself with some leftover spaghetti sauce, give this one a try. Truly yummy, esp if you make your own homemade sauce. If you’d like to see what other participants came up with, you can find more over here, or here.