Clockjack Oven’s Chicken Club Sandwich

Chicken club sandwich from Clockjack Oven, Soho

As far as classic sandwiches go, the club sandwich has got to be up there with the best known.  Although many have laid claim to the original club sandwich, all we really know is that it originated in the United States sometime in the 19th century.  And that it gave its name to the weekly club night at my university’s student union.

The club sandwich is traditionally made with three slices of toasted bread that houses sliced poultry (commonly chicken or turkey), bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise.  A wooden skewer is usually pierced though the entire sandwich to hold it together.  Pimiento-stuffed olive optional.

Generally speaking, there are two types of chicken shop in London:  the type found on every high street; the generic cheapo fried-chicken in a box that is responsible for the scourge of chicken bones littered across the London streets, and the new ones; the restaurants that have taken the gourmet fast food trend towards poultry and created something for the more discerning diner.  Soho’s Clockjack Oven certainly falls into the latter category, and when I heard there was a place specialising in proper rotisserie chicken in London, I could barely contain my excitement.  And they had a chicken club on their menu.

Before I talk about the sandwich specifically, I have to say that I love the chicken at Clockjack Oven.  The chicken is always cooked perfectly and has the kind of crispy skin that I go nuts for.  To reluctantly use a term that is banded around far too much in food writing these days: it is faultless.

The sandwich, however, sadly, is not.  Firstly, it is one of the most enormous sandwiches I had ever eaten which, for £8.95 is good value, but I did wonder if I could eat it all.  The bread is fairly good quality sourdough but, despite having a few char-lines on the surface, was not toasted anywhere near enough, which made the sandwich a little tricky to eat.  The ingredients were good – the excellent chicken combined with a little crisp bacon, some lettuce and tomato and some good mayo.  Despite the quality of these, I could not help but feel a little disappointed.

For one thing, the chicken was fridge-cold, which was not reminiscent of the usual club sandwich where the chicken is warmed a little by the toasted bread, or at room temperature at the very least.  The bacon tasted as though it was freshly grilled, but was also cold.  Any ideas I had in my mind of a good club sandwich had soon disappeared as I wrestled to eat this monstrous concoction without getting too much chilled mayonnaise on my face.

Of course restaurants want to be creative with their own interpretations of the classics, and sometimes this creates new and ingenious creations, but often it simply doesn’t work.  Sadly this was the case with the chicken club sandwich, and that great chicken was not shown at its best.  Make it smaller, toast the bread and serve the meat warm and it would be a huge improvement.

Clockjack Oven, 14 Denman Street, London W1D 7HJ.

Recipe: Goats Cheese, Grilled Courgette and Sundried Tomato on Focaccia

Goats cheese, grilled courgette and sundried tomato on focaccia. Eaten at my desk

This was a bit of a fridge raid, actually.  This often happens as the end of the week approaches – the odds and ends of the ingredients for earlier meals loiter around the fridge, gently threatening to go to waste.  Half a tub of soft goats cheese, a couple of baby courgettes and a few sundried tomatoes and I almost had a sandwich.

I find vegetarian sandwiches to be somewhat restorative during times when I am eating a lot of meat.  I used focaccia rolls for this sandwich simply because I like it.  Waitrose sell a pack of two rosemary and sea salt focaccia rolls for £1.66 that are big enough for a substantial lunchtime sandwich.  They are from their Essential range.  Really.  You can use slices of ordinary focaccia if you wish.  Or make your own.

Goats Cheese, Grilled Courgette and Sundried Tomato on Focaccia
Makes two

Two large focaccia rolls, I used Waitrose sea salt and rosemary (see above)
About 100g soft goats cheese, or cream cheese
8 sundried tomatoes
3 baby courgettes, thinly sliced vertically
Black pepper

Split the focaccia rolls and spead the bottom half liberally with the goats cheese.  You will not need butter as there is a lot of oil in the bread.

Place the sundried tomatoes between two slices of kitchen paper and wipe to remove any excess oil.

Lightly saute baby courgette slices in a small frying pan, or griddle if you wish.  Transfer to kitchen paper to drain and allow to cool.

Arrange the courgette slices on top of the goats cheese and place the sundried tomatoes on top with a grind of black pepper.  Replace the top half of the focaccia and serve.

Scandinavian Kitchen’s Swedish Meatball Baguette

Swedish meatball baguette from the Scandinavian Kitchen, Fitzrovia

Another world-class photo from me.  The smudgy pink fingerprints really set it off, don’t you think? I could lay the blame at a number of doors, but it’s just that I’m not very good. Sorry.

Working just around the corner from the Scandinavian Kitchen is both a blessing and a curse.  It is wonderful to be able to pop out for one of their excellent cinnamon buns or enormous semlor whenever I want; but on the other hand, the convenience of doing so means that I am there frequently, which is not pleasing to waistline or wallet alike.  As far as their savoury options go, there are a number of good sandwiches on offer.  They sometimes have a lunchtime deal of a hotdog and beer for £5 (just don’t ask them whether the Swedish or Danish beer is better as the staff hail from both countries!), or a number of open sandwiches that you can have as part of a lunch platter:  three ‘items’ for £5.95.  My favourite is the herring.

Yesterday I had little time to dine in so these options were off the table.  I turned my attention instead to a selection of pre-wrapped baguettes behind the glass counter – the kind you can eat at your desk in between phonecalls.  Two words grabbed me:  Swedish Meatball.

It’s nearly impossible to write about Swedish meatballs without the mention of a certain furniture stall and its food hall.  Although this is probably the extent to which much of the UK has been exposed to Swedish food, they are a poor example.  They have definitely gone downhill since the horsemeat scandal – make of that what you will.  Proper Swedish meatballs, homemade or from a Scandinavian cafe, are infinitely superior.  Made into a sandwich, they also work well, and are an interesting alternative to the Italian meatball sub.  The Scandinavian Kitchen version comes in a soft white baguette with a delicious sweet beetroot sauce (hence the mucky edges!), some lightly pickled cucumbers and a whole lot of salad.  Eternally preferable to the gloopy gravy and lingonberry jam (shudder).  The meatballs have a good amount of flavour and seasoning and are plentiful enough to make a substantial lunch.  The presentation could be improved a little, but their usual selection is so pretty, we’ll just put it down to an off day on that front.

Plus, who can resist the hilarity of the puns on the board outside?

Indeed…

Scandinavian Kitchen, 61 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7PP

Recipe: Halloumi, Sundried Tomato and Mint Sandwich

Halloumi, sundried tomato and mint sandwich

One of my biggest bete noires of sandwich making is raw halloumi.  I’m not quite sure why people use it as everybody in the world knows that halloumi is at its best when griddled or fried in a smidge of oil until it chars a little.  Despite this, I can think of at least three places that don’t grill their halloumi, including the place that does the best falafel in town – what is up with that?

I often make these (grilled) halloumi, sundried tomato and mint sandwiches for a packed lunch.  Some might see cold halloumi as a big a sin as raw halloumi, but as long as it is kept at room temperature and not chilled, it works really well.  It is adapted from a recipe I found online about ten years ago called the ‘hallelujah’ sandwich.  The sweetness of the sundried tomatoes and freshness of the mint works really well with the salted halloumi.  The best bread to use is a white bloomer or a baguette.

Halloumi, Sundried Tomato and Mint Sandwich
Serves one

Two slices of white bloomer (or a baguette – see above)
Mayonnaise
Salad leaves
5 slices halloumi
4 sundried tomatoes
1 tsp chopped fresh mint
Black pepper

Spread the two slices of bread thinly with butter and one of these thinly with mayonnaise.  Pile some salad leaves on top of the mayonnaise.

Griddle the halloumi over a high heat until well charred but not burnt.  Place on a plate lined with kitchen paper and allow to cool.

Dry the sundried tomatoes with kitchen paper to remove most of the oil and cut in half lengthways.

Place the cooled halloumi on top of th salad leaves, followed by the sundried tomatoes, mint and black pepper.  Place the other slice of bread on top and slice in half.

John Lewis’ 150 Years Ham and Cheese Sandwich

The ham and cheese sandwich from John Lewis’ A Place to Eat

Everybody’s favourite department store is currently celebrating 150 years since the opening of its flagship Oxford Circus store in 1864.  I often wonder what life would be like without John Lewis.  I am so fond of it that my best friend and I refer to it as ‘The Mothership’.

Department store cafes are a strange beast, evoking images of their 1990s glory days when you would trundle up the escalator from homewares for a cup of tea and a scone, and a quick trip to the loo, before heading home.  They still exist in their many guises; some have drastically improved and installed restaurants (Selfridges) whilst others are like stepping back in time to the above (BHS).

There seems to have been cafes in branches of John Lewis since time began and although they have moved with the times somewhat, there is still a sense of nostalgia:  the coffee is still served in teacups and you can still buy the largest scones on earth from the cake counter alongside the more modern vertiginously iced cupcakes.  The omelette station still seems to have the biggest queue which seems strange to me as I have never eaten an omelette in a cafe. Ever.

A Place to Eat, as it has been called for some time, is also celebrating 150 years of John Lewis by offering up some of the old favourites on the sandwich counter.  Prawn mayo baguettes with cucumber curled in a 1970s fashion and tuna sandwiches with a lot of cress sit next to the more modern offerings.  I opted for the heritage ham and cheese. The oldies are the goodies.

The baguette was at least a foot long, so was cut in half by the gentleman behind the counter.  Thick slices of ham were folded into the sandwich with triangles of cheese sticking vertically up from the slit like yellow shark’s fins.  Among the mixed leaves I detected a smear of sandwich pickle.

The bread was fresh and the ham good-quality and well-flavoured.  The cheese was a fairly generic medium cheddar, but nice enough.  The problem was that the whole thing was a little dry and didn’t quite have enough pickle.  A quick trip to the condiment station (that had just about everything by the way) procured a little sachet of mayonnaise that sorted it out right away.  Ham and cheese sandwiches have become a little hard to find of late, but a good one is a thing of beauty.  This is a good one, a little more pickle and it would be a great one.

Chappers’ Top Tips for a Great BBQ Burger

One great burger

The abundance of great burgers in London makes it all the more difficult to impress with a homemade burger.  It seems we’re taking BBQ far more seriously lately, and gone are the days where a cheap sausage, a supermarket bun and a bit of ketchup will cut it – we want good food and we want lots of it.  My sister-from-another-mister Claire, also known as Chappers, puts on an eagerly awaited BBQ each year in her Forest Hill garden and is fast becoming the undisputed Queen of the Grill (south east London division).  The centerpiece of this BBQ is a rather excellent burger, so well thought through and designed that it could rival those found in restaurants across the city.  A brioche bun, a medium-rare patty, house pickles and an outrageous amount of cheese.  And somehow the weather even manages to hold up long enough to enjoy it.

Here are her top tips for a really good home-made BBQ burger:

Preparation:  This is key as you don’t want to delay serving your burgers because nothing else is ready.  All toppings should be prepped well in advance of the start of the BBQ.  If you have the space, create a production line of prepared baps, ready for the patties when they come off the grill.  Load the baps with the toppings and create a separate space for those who have specific requirements (no bacon, no mustard etc.)

Toppings:  This is really up to you, but I always add the following:  shredded iceberg lettuce, gherkins, red onions that have been soaked in a little red wine vinegar, candied bacon (more on this in a minute), burger cheese, ketchup and yellow American mustard.

Candied Bacon:  If you have the time to make this, it changes a good burger into a flipping great burger.  Place slices of bacon on a baking tray and top with brown sugar, white granulated sugar, pepper and a little smoked paprika and bake in the oven until crisp.  Allow to cool before serving.

Bread:  For me, the only bun is brioche.  You can make your own using this recipe, or you can buy a packet of four from Aldi for just 99p.  Use smaller buns where possible; it doesn’t matter if your burger hangs out of the edges a little, but there is nothing worse than taking a bite of just bread.  Toast them lightly on the grill first – spray with Fry Light to stop them sticking.

Patty:  This is the important part.  The higher the fat content in the beef, the juicier the burger, so cheap mince often works really well.  I tend to stick to the same recipe, and have recently taken to adding mozzarella to the middle of the burgers for extra cheesy goodness.  The key is to keep the patties fairly fat so the inside stays rare whilst the outside crisps up.

The candied bacon production line

Claire’s Burger Recipe
Makes eight patties

500g beef mince
1 large egg
10 crackers, crushed
Plenty of salt and pepper
Garlic powder
1 large onion, grated
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Olive oil
Jalapenos, finely chopped, to taste
Half a ball of mozzarella

Combine all of the ingredients together in a large bowl using your hands.  Divide the mixture into 8 equal pieces.  Divide the mozzarella into eight equal pieces also.

For each patty, divide the pieces in half and flatten one with your hands. Place a piece of mozzarella on top. Place the other half of the meat on top and use your hands to mould it around the mozzarella, shaping the whole thing into a patty.  Pinch the edges together and ensure there are no gaps through which the mozzarella could escape.

As well as being the queen of the BBQ, Claire is also an avid fan of London burger restaurants.  Her top three burgers are:

Patty & Bun, Marylebone – The Ari Gold
Mother Flipper, various locations – The Double Candy Bacon Flipper
MEATLiquor, Marylebone – The Dead Hippie

Masters Sandwich Bar’s Parma Ham, Mozzarella and Basil Panini

Parma ham, mozzarella and basil panini from Masters Sandwiches on Great Portland Street

When it comes to lunchtime possibilities, there is nothing really better than working in central London.  Of course, you’ll feel it keenly in your wallet, but there are an abundance of places within this relatively small area where you can eat well for your midday meal.  I’ve been in a situations before where my options were limited to a chain coffee shop, a rather dubious looking greasy spoon and a supermarket chiller cabinet – none of which were any good – so I always remind myself to be appreciative.

That being said, a wide choice brings the bad as well as the good.  And where there is a high concentration of office workers, the chains inevitably move in.  I know how easy it is for these chains to become a habit – day after day, I see people walk through my office with the same Pret bag, or desk-lunching with the same sushi box from Itsu.  It’s easy, convenient, fairly cheap and you know what you’re going to get, right?  I fell into the Pret trap some years ago and it was a long time before I could face a crayfish sandwich again.

The fear of falling into a lunchtime rut has sent me out on to the streets of Fitzrovia to sample what is on offer beyond the franchises and to see what I can find in the little independents.  A walk down Mortimer Street led me past Starbucks to the excellent Workshop Coffee and a new-found belief in the power of vegan sandwiches; and a walk a little further the following day led me to Masters Sandwich Bar, on the corner of Great Portland Street.

Like many of the small independent cafes and restaurants around Great Portland Street and Great Titchfield Street, Masters is longstanding – it has been there since 1983.  The menu is the usual mix of breakfast items, bagels and toasted sandwiches, and on one wall they have a selection of pastries and cakes, including a delicious-looking cinnamon danish. 

I ordered a panini with parma ham, mozzarella, tomatoes and basil which was toasted whilst I waited.  The parma ham was good quality, and added a nice amount of saltiness to the creamy blandness of the mozzarella.  The tomatoes and the basil were plentiful, but I couldn’t help but feel as though there was something missing – another element that would have pulled it all together and turned it from a good sandwich into a spectacular one.  Perhaps more seasoning?

Seasoning, in the end, came from a packet of scampi fries that I had in my handbag.

Masters Sandwiches, 53 Great Portland Street, London W1W 7LG

Recipe: Red Pepper, Mushroom and Black-Eyed Beans Quesadilla

Red pepper, mushroom and black-eye beans quesadillas

I had a conversation with a friend the other day where they claimed that the quesadilla I had cooked for dinner the night before was not a sandwich.  So it’s not really, in the traditional sense, but the formula still applies:  bread + filling = sandwich.  No?

I was taught to make quesadillas whilst staying in Los Angeles with a girl called Katie.  She worked for the California Farmers Market Association, so always had a huge amount of fresh produce to hand.  I quickly realised that quesadillas were a wonderful and quick way to make a meal out of whatever you had at home.

Katie is a vegetarian, so hers always consisted of just vegetables, beans and cheese, along with the usual spices.  I have carried this tradition on and hardly ever make mine with meat or fish.

I also make my quesadillas by placing one tortilla in the pan, followed by the filling, and then another tortilla on top, but it takes a lot of practice, and a very large spatula to flip these.  It is far easier to put the filling on one side of the tortilla, then flip the other half over to make a semi-circular folded tortilla.

Red Pepper, Mushroom and Black Eye Beans Quesadilla
Serves two

Olive oil
1 red onion, finely diced
2 red peppers, diced
250g mushrooms, halved and sliced
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt and pepper
400g tin black-eyed beans
4 flour tortillas
100g cheddar cheese, grated
Handful chopped coriander

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and saute the red onion, red peppers and mushrooms until soft, about five minutes.  Stir in the spices, salt and pepper and the black-eyed beans and cook for an additional couple of minutes to heat through.

Heat a separate large frying pan over a medium heat.  Brush a tortilla with olive oil and place, oiled side down, in the frying pan.  Spoon a generous amount of the vegetable and beans mixture on to the tortilla and spread out, leaving a 3cm border around the edges.  Sprinkle over the cheese and coriander, place another tortilla on top and press down (or use the fold-over method, see above).

Cook for a couple of minutes then gently lift one side of the quesadilla to check the underside has browned.  When ready, flip the quesadilla and cook on the other side for a further few minutes until browned.  Transfer to a plate, cut in half and serve with sour cream, salsa and avocado.

Workshop Coffee’s Hummus, Harissa and Roasted Red Peppers Baguette

The hummus, harissa and roasted red peppers baguette from Workshop Coffee, Fitzrovia

There’s a lot of good coffee in Fitzrovia right now.  Gone are the days of the terrible freeze-dried stuff they provide at my office, or the overpriced chains where they burn the beans and scorch the milk (shudder).  With baristas flocking to W1 and new cafes opening up all the time, it is very difficult to remain monogamous to one.  The caffeine-hungry, it seems, are spoiled for choice.

On my return to work from a long summer holiday, I was pleasantly surprised to find a new branch of Workshop Coffee on Mortimer Street, conveniently placed at the very end of my commute.  I had schlepped over to their Marylebone branch a few times to pick up coffee for my home machine, but it was a little too far for a mid-morning sneak-out-of-the-office coffee.

I could talk about the coffee all day, but this is a sandwich blog, so I will leave it at this: it’s blinding.

The new Fitzrovia cafe is characteristically sparse in design, but has a comfortable seating area at the back, should you wish to stay a while.  My favourite feature of the place was the rows of bright peacock blue espresso cups lined up on top of the coffee machine.  If I hadn’t espresso cups enough, I would have bought one there and then.

There were only a few varieties of sandwich on offer, in a glass case by the window.  There was no menu in the shop, nor is there one on the website, so I imagine the selection changes daily.  I opted for the vegan option: hummus, harissa and roasted red peppers, with a bit of salad, on a malted wholemeal baguette.  It can be quite difficult to make vegan sandwiches filling and exciting, especially without the usual stalwarts of falafel or tofu, but this worked really well.

I often approach harissa with a bit of caution as it can be blisteringly hot (my brother-in-law makes a particularly ferocious one), but Workshop blended it with the hummus, which cooled it down whilst retaining the chilli tang.  The hummus was slightly chunky, which gave a good amount of texture, especially against the slipperiness of the roasted peppers.  If I’m being particularly fussy, I would have preferred the peppers to be chopped more finely to make the sandwich easier to eat.  Aside from that, it was perfect.

Best eaten with a cappuccino.

Workshop Coffee, 80 Mortimer Street, London W1U 1QD.

Recipe: A Wrap Made With Ottolenghi’s Fish and Caper Kebabs

Ottolenghi’s Fish and Caper Kebabs, made into a wrap

I rediscovered my love of Ottolenghi’s recipes earlier in the week.  I dug out my copies of Ottolenghi, Plenty and Jerusalem to try to find something to do with the huge bottle of pomegranate molasses I have in the cupboard, and ended up spending a couple of hours leafing through the books, marking many pages with pink post-its for later.

This recipe, especially, caught my eye.  Although the London heatwave is now over and the city much cooler, I am still in the mood for bright summery food and this combination of fish, capers, dill and citrus just seemed to do the trick.  The simple process of mixing the ingredients, chilling the ‘kebabs’ and frying appeals to even the laziest cook.

The recipe suggests this as a starter: three ‘kebabs’ per person served with a dollop of the burnt aubergine.  I preferred instead to put the whole lot inside a wrap with some salad.  One wrap would do for a nice lunch, two would make a more substantial dinner.

Fish and Caper Kebabs Wrap with Burnt Aubergine
Serves four as a light lunch or two for a dinner; adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi

For the burnt aubergine
2 medium aubergines
2 tbsp greek yoghurt
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tbsp chopped parsley
Salt and black pepper

For the kebabs
400g white fish fillet, skinless and boneless
30g breadcrumbs
1/2 a medium egg, beaten
20g capers, chopped
20g dill, chopped
2 spring onions, finely chopped
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
¾ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground white pepper

To assemble
Sunflower oil, for frying
4 corn tortillas or flatbreads
Rocket

Start by making the burnt aubergines.  Cook the aubergines directly over the gas flame of a cooker, turning occasionally.  The skin will blister and the flesh will become soft inside.  It will take 5-10 minutes per aubergine.  Once cooked, set aside to cool.

Once cooled, scoop out the flesh and transfer to a sieve.  Gently press the flesh with the back of a spoon to squeeze out any excess moisture.  Roughly chop and place in a medium bowl.  To this bowl, add the yoghurt, garlic, parsley, 1tsp salt and a good amount of black pepper.  Stir to combine and set aside.

Finely chop the fish fillet and place in a large bowl.  Ad the remaining ingredients and stir to combine.  Divide the mixture into 12 equal pieces and shape into ovals with your hands.  Place on a plate and refridgerate for at least half an hour.

Pour a small amount of oil into a large frying pan, about 1mm deep and cook the fish balls for three minutes on each side, or until well-browned.  Drain on kitchen paper.

Put some rocket and a couple of spoonfuls of burnt aubergine on the tortilla, then add three fish balls and roll up.  Add some hot sauce if you wish.