Saigon Subs: the steak sandwich redux

We've mentioned before that a fave cookbook of ours is Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet by locals Alford & Duguid. And within that favourite book is a favourite recipe for the Vietnamese Submarine sandwich.

One thing that often happens when cultures clash and then meld is that exciting new foods are born. In the best instances the sum will be greater than the individual parts. In the case of the Saigon Sub, Vietnamese cooks took French components, specifically the baguette, pâté, and mayonnaise and married them with sweet, sour & salty carrot pickle and coriander. Other than those key elements, the list of ingredients is widely variable & up to you.

In our case, we prefer to add sliced medium-rare rib eye. Because there are a lot of ingredients stuffed between the crusty layers, we will generally share a small mini-baguette between us. (We use the Ace Bakery frozen baguette, which we find has both the correct density and crust texture)

The balance that the pickle and the pungent herb bring to the richness of the European ingredients is nothing short of divine. Actually, we prefer to think there's something redemptive about the raw carrots & cilantro that make up for the fact that you're scarfing down all that red meat, liver and eggs!