Turkey Sandwich with Secret Ranch
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At its best, a sandwich is a meal between two slices of bread, and I mean more than just protein, carbs, and some sort of veg. An epic sandwich will hit several key flavor categories—savory, rich, fresh, sour—and pack tons of texture into each bite. We’re looking for juicy, crunchy, drippy, creamy, chewy, and (this is going to sound weird), wet, too. The way shreddy letty, slaw, oil and vinegar, and a tomato are wet.
A turkey sandwich on rye with lettuce, tomato, mayo and mustard from a regular deli can be good. But when I put in my pickup order from La Bagel Delight on Front Street after a workout, I optimize it from within the confines of their cold case. Add: pickled jalapeños, avocado, lettuce, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, hot sauce, and ask for it on toasted bread. Instant upgrade. I take sandwiches seriously, and I believe in them.
This week’s recipe is my third in collaboration with Humboldt Fog, universally known as one of the great domestic cheeses. We all know how to put a piece of cheese on a sandwich, but I wanted to find out if this crumbly goat cheese could work itself into a special sandwich sauce. Because, frankly, not everyone loves goat cheese, but everyone LOVES ranch. Secret Ranch was born, and goat cheese converts will soon fall in line.
Ranch means a lot of different things to different people (the Hidden Valley bottle appears above my skull like a lightbulb), but I do believe that the essence of Ranch is a combination of creamy, tangy, and herby. The herb is almost always dill, and thank goddesses I am a dill convert, which can go it alone or find camaraderie with tarragon, chives, parsley, or basil.
Usually, when developing recipes, it takes two or three tries to land on a winning version. Secret Ranch needed almost no tweaking. I knew HF would work, because, like a good Ranch, it is creamy, tangy, and herby. For the base of the dressing, I chose other sour-sweet dairy items, sour cream and buttermilk, and left out the mayo. Love mayo, but there was plenty of rich creaminess going on already. The first time I made Secret Ranch, I did it in a bowl with a whisk. The resulting dressing was thick, with some texture, and white with green flecks (see above). The second time, I used a hand blender. Definitely faster; the dressing was thinner and evenly green, with a few flecks.
I incorporated the crunchy and bracing things into one mixture rather than layering them on individually: red onion, pickled jalapeños, and fennel, dressed simply with pickle brine and lemon juice. The one mistake I made in my architecture was the addition of arugula to the slaw: it got real slippery real fast. For the final version, I ditched the arugula and placed a few basil leaves on top of the slaw, and they play the part of the fresh, lettuce-y thing.
The slaw was the wet and crunchy thing. I wrangled some potato chips for the dry and crispy thing, and they do get delightfully softened by all the juices flowing. I’m sure you’ve all come far enough in life to enjoy a potato chip on a sandwich. If not: welcome.
And then there’s the bread. I considered various rolls, some seeded, some not; plus focaccia, ciabatta, and baguette. They are all good, but the soft roll and the fresh baguette were my favorites. I let you guys vote via Instagram, and to my surprise the baguette took the blue ribbon. I want to honor that by showing you the full demi-baguette, below.
The irony is that the one thing I specifically designed to go into this sandwich—the Secret Ranch—needs no sandwich to achieve excellence. It’s one of the great dips: for chips, wings, pizza, crudité, and crackers. As salad dressings go, it holds its own alongside Green Goddess and Blue Cheese. It would be ridiculous spooned over sliced tomatoes, or on a platter beneath grilled eggplant. You can even play a fun game with people who don’t like goat cheese where you serve this and then they love it and then you tell them that they just ate Humboldt Fog. Hilarious, no?!