Photos by the fantastically talented Caroline Malouse.
I live for sandwiches. Their kitschy sensibility – quick-to-fix, grab-and-go parcels of harmonious ingredients held together with bread slices – is only the start of their appeal to me; I also love the boundless opportunity that sandwiches present to mix and match condiments, from the arcane to the mundane, with meats and toppings and spreads from fried shrimp or hummus to gruyère or caramelized onions. Needless to say, I got really excited for the sandwiches that would come from the smoked eye of round that we got the other day. My favorite way to eat it was with two slices of seed-laden multigrain bread, Creole mustard, and some arugula. But when I found myself wanting a more concentrated flavor, I came up with this, and it was even better:
Photos by the fantastically talented Caroline Malouse.
Roast beef roll-ups with coarse ground mustard and arugula. Because the bread wasn’t there to add textural dynamic, I loved replacing the Creole mustard with the coarse ground, whose graininess added intrigue as well as flavor to the bite, whereas the Creole’s creaminess might have been lost. The eye of round’s smooth, smoky flavor matched well with the peppery arugula and tart mustard. And the end product, with the scalloped green leaves poking out of their pinky-brown bundles just so, was so tousled but lovely that I could’ve put them on a silver platter at a party for a more mature finger sandwich. Be careful, though; these are so addictive that you might just want to eat six.
