Rereading a book is often a chance to revisit a time in your life when you first turned the pages; perhaps a reminder of where you were in the world and what you knew of it back then. For example, when I first read Anne Rice’s fantastically creepy The Witching Hour, I hadn’t yet been to New Orleans, San Francisco, or Marseilles as featured in her book. But she captures New Orleans so particularly well I felt I had been there even before experiencing for myself the murmuring Spanish moss under the shiver of rain, the iron-lace balconies and flickering flambeaux, as well as that sense of something quite magical in the air...
This sentence from The Witching Hour brought back a delicious memory: “We left Galatoire’s finally for a small, quiet Bourbon Street café and continued our conversation until well after 8:30 that evening.”
How well I got to know Bourbon Street over several visits! And how quickly I remembered a perfectly languid afternoon spent with a good friend in the enchanting back garden at Napoleon House in the French Quarter. After so many hours (witchy and otherwise!), our final bill included about a million Sazerac cocktails and a traditional muffuletta sandwich that we shared.
Napoleon House is one of my all-time favorite places in the world that I know. I’m thrilled to share the recipe for a muffuletta here, made with simple deli meats and cheeses, olive salad, and the best bread you can find. I suggest a host of Sazeracs as an accompaniment as well, but they are entirely optional, of course.
Napoleon House Muffuletta
Yields: 2-4 servings
Ingredients
1 (9-inch-round) seeded muffuletta bun or Italian seeded bread, halved
Extra-virgin olive oil
4 slices ham
5 slices Genoa salami
2 slices pastrami
3 slices provolone cheese
3 slices Swiss cheese
⅔ cup Napoleon House Olive Salad (recipe follows)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°.
Brush bottom and top half of bun lightly with oil. Layer ham, salami, pastrami, and cheeses on bottom half of bun. Top with Napoleon House Olive Salad, and cover with top half of bun. Wrap in foil.
Bake until thoroughly heated, about 20 minutes. Unwrap, and cut in half or quarters.
Napoleon House Olive Salad
Yields: 3 cups
Ingredients
1 cup pimiento-stuffed Spanish queen olives, chopped
½ cup canned chickpeas, drained and coarsely chopped
½ cup pickled vegetables,* drained and coarsely chopped
⅓ cup canned artichoke hearts, drained and coarsely chopped
¼ cup cocktail onions, drained and coarsely chopped
¼ cup green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 tablespoon capers, drained and chopped
½ teaspoon minced garlic
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
In a large bowl, combine olives, chickpeas, pickled vegetables, artichoke hearts, onions, bell pepper, capers, and garlic. Add oil, vinegar, oregano, and pepper, stirring to combine. Cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. Will keep refrigerated for up to 1 week.
Notes
*We used giardiniera, a mixture of pickled carrot, cauliflower, celery, and green pepper.
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