This month’s Sandwich Night pays homage to a truly inspired sandwich created to take on hunts in Old England – a portable beef wellington known as the shooter’s sandwich.
While a traditional Beef Wellington is steak wrapped in puff pastry, this brilliant sandwich version substitutes a loaf of bread. Take a bread loaf, hollow it out, stuff it with mushrooms, mustard, and steak, put the top back on, wrap it, press it, weight it down over night and voila – a perfect portable hearty meal for the hunters.
We love this technique and played around with different combinations of flavors to create three shooter sandwiches for Sandwich Night. The original shooter – steak and mushrooms, a muffuletta inspired shooter, and a mediterranean inspired shooter. As the sandwich is compressed, the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts and the flavors meld together. Depending on your ingredients, this sandwich can actually come together quickly and ahead of time. You may not be going on a fox hunt but this inspired sandwich is perfect for a great plan ahead dinner for busy weekday nights, camping, picnics, hikes, tailgating, or any outdoor activity.
Although very differnet – all three were delicous and flavorful.
Steps to Creating Delicous Shooter Sandwiches
- Pick your Flavor Profiles
- Pick your Bread (Be sure it is a sturdy whole loaf or round – not sliced – soft bread won’t work for this type of sandwich
- Cut off the top of the Bread
- Pull out the Insides of the Bread Creating a Well
- Layer Your Flavors to the Top
- Put the Top Back On the Loaf
- Wrap in Parchment or Wax Paper
- Wrap in Tinfoil
- Put Between Two Cookie Sheets and Weigh Down with a Heavy Pot or Book for at Least 6 Hours (We do overnight – making it a great option for planning ahead)
- Unwrap and Slice to Enjoy
TIP: This sandwich will keep great without refrigeration as long as you avoid creamy condiments like mayo or yougurt. Stick to olive oil based condiments, vinegars, or mustards to give this sandwich great longevity.
Muffuletta Shooter Sandwich on Seeded Whole Grain Bread
For its ease of preparation and delicous melding of the flavors – this just may be our favorite shooter sandwich.
A walk down the condiment aisle gave us lots of ideas for our shooter sandwich experiement. We found a mixed olive tapenade that sounded too good to resist. We also found the typical mix of pickled vegetables found in a muffuletta. The tapenade was already diced and required no additional prep so we chose that to make it easy. A visit to the deli aisle for a variety of Italian meats and cheeses and a final stop in the bakery to pick out our vehicle for this yumminess and we were ready to go.
- Olive Tapenade
- Salami
- Mortadella
- Capicolli
- Soprasetta
- Sliced Fontina Cheese
- Seeded Whole Grain Bread
Following the steps above, we hollowed out the bread, layered the olives, meats and cheeses to the top, wrapped it, pressed it, weighted it down and the next day were in sandwich heaven. The salty briny olive layers really infused into the bread and the meats and cheeses making every bit the perfect bite.
Alternate Layers of Tapenade and Meat
Layer it Up Some More
Close it Up and Wrap it Up
Slice it Up & Eat it Up
Mediterranean Shooter Sandwich on Rosemary Sourdough Loaf
For our mediterranean inspired sandwich we went to some of our favorite go to flavors here at Sandwich America. A rich kale pesto as the base with the sweet roasted tomatoes, salty Kalamata olives, and creamy goatcheese. This one is delicious as a vegetarian option or add grilled chicken to make it a sandwich meal.
- Pesto
- Grilled Chicken
- Oven Roasted Tomatoes
- Kalamata Olives
- Goat Cheese
- Spinach
Alterante Pesto, Chicken, Olives, Spinach, Goat Cheese, and Tomatoes Layering to the Top
Wrap, press, weight down over night. Delicious!!
Mediterranean Grilled Chicken Shooter Sandwich
Traditional Shooer Sandwich
The traditional shooter sandwich does take some extra time and preparation but is worth it if you have some meat lovers who enjoy a hearty steak sandwich.
- Sourdough Round
- Mushroom Duxelles
- Dijon Mustard Sauce
- Grilled Ribeye Steaks
- Fresh Spinach
We sauteed onions and finely diced mushrooms in butter and olive oil. The dijon mustard sauce was four parts dijon and one part horseradish but you can change the ratio to your liking. We seasoned the ribeyes simply with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper then grilled to a medium rare.
Although the traditional Shooter’s Sandwich put the whole steak in the bread – we sliced ours so we could have more layers. The nice kick of the horseradish and the fresh spinach layer really made this sandwich a standout.
We applied the dijon horseradish sauce generously to the inside of the hollowed out loaf and to the inside of the lid. We started with a layer of mushrooms then steak then spinach then repeated. As with all our shooters, we wrapped in wax paper, then in tinfoil, then weighted down over night. And here is the beautious result.
Traditional Shooter Sandwich with Steak, Dijon Horseradish Sauce and Spinach
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