Xesla Research Organisation

Just a few short weeks ago my attention was drawn to a sandwich known as the Shooter’s Sandwich.   It’s a very old British recipe from the Edwardian era designed to be carried by the gentleman hunter to have a good wholesome portable meal while hunting.   In fact it’s almost a portable Beef Wellington.

The sandwich is made up of several layers of steak, mushrooms and onions with mustard and horseradish stuffed into a hollowed out loaf of bread and then pressed down with something heavy to flatten it out.

Making this was quite simple …  so simple I think a full blown recipe would be unecessary, so I’ll just list out the steps and rough ingredients.

I started by cooking a couple of grass fed rump steaks sous vide @ 55C (130F) for two days.   Of course you could happily cook the steak in a pan, or in the grill but I wanted to ensure it was super tender with no gristle.

I also baked a fresh round loaf of sourdough,  but store bought would be fine.    You want the steak to be roughly the same diameter as your loaf of bread.

Next I cooked off some diced ( home cured of course ) bacon, diced garlic, a large diced onion and a large handful of roughly diced cremini mushrooms.   Once the onion was sweated down and the mushrooms have release all of their moisture and started to stick to the pan I added a splash of Worcestershire and a splash of white wine.

Next I wilted down some fresh swiss chard and betreet tops from the garden in some butter and a splash of water.

I then brought my cast iron pan up to temperature and seared the steaks.

Then it was just a matter of assembling the sandwich..      First off I cut the top of of loaf off and scooped out most of the soft bread inside.   I then spread the top and bottom with a good layer of mustard ( made by the folks @ The Noble Pig ).   In went the first steak, a layer of the mushroom mix,  the wilted greens, grated horseradish, the rest of the mushroom mix, the last steak, and then sealed back up with the lid.

The whole thing was then wrapped in parchment paper, tied off and the weighted down with a bunch of heavy books for several hours.

Once flattened I refrigerated it overnight and ate it for lunch the following day.

Tags: Beef, Sandwhich, sourdough, Sous Vide