Thursday, March 1, 2012

Turkey Bacon Club Sandwich (aka: TurkeyMaster)


When my dearest friend, Tammy, lived in the Shoreline District of Seattle, she fell in love with a sandwich that Burger Master had on their menu.  I don't know if the name on the menu was TurkeyMaster or not, but that is what she always called it.  Any time we were in the area together, we'd swing through there and devour these delicious sandwiches.  It's so tasty with toasty, grilled-to-perfection sourdough bread, plenty of melty cheese (yes, I said melty), and the chewy bacon to impart a bit of smokey goodness, and plenty of mayo and shredded lettuce to balance out the hot ingredients with something cool and crunchy... I'm salivating just thinking about it...

But alas, I'm a rural girl and I rarely get into Seattle (and would probably get myself lost trying to find the place without Tammy), so I decided to come up with my own version and it has become a favorite in our house.  These sandwiches pack well too, for picnics and such (if you don't mind eating it cold - which we don't), just wrap them up individually in parchment, then foil and it will keep them from turning soggy on you.  When our nieces and nephew first moved in with us, we went to a lot of counseling sessions and with 4 kids we were there a couple of hours each session, so we'd pack these sammies for dinner along with some chips and drinks and we'd be all set. 

Cook your bacon first. Have you tried baking it in the oven yet? It's really the only way to go. Bake it at 425 on your broiler pan or on a wire rack set on top of a rimmed baking sheet. Your bacon will stay mostly flat, the fat will drip down onto the pan below and you can make a lot of bacon at one time. Beware though, if you bake several batches at once, each subsequent batch will take about 2 minutes less than the batch before it.


I made just one sandwich today so I could take advantage of the natural daylight for the photos and I'd had breakfast late this morning so I did use just one slice of bread and cut it in half.

Top one slice with a pile of turkey. Then top that with a pile of bacon, and a slice of cheese - I used smoked fontina today just because I've been on a fontina kick for a couple of weeks now.


You know how it goes, top it with the other slice of bread, butter the exterior of each slice generously (or you can brush them with olive oil if you prefer)and grill it in a skillet or on a griddle on low heat until both sides are golden brown and the cheese is all melty. You could certainly do this with a panini press too, if you prefer. I used my cast iron skillet since I was just making one for me. Tonight when we have them for dinner I'll use my two burner griddle so I can make several at once.


Once you remove it from the pan, griddle or whatever, pull off one slice of the bread and slather it generously with mayo and add lettuce - you can add tomato if you like at this point too. Enjoy it while it's hot, preferably with fries or good quality kettle style potato chips (I like those salt & pepper ones a bit too much).


MMmmm.... That was so good. Sorry, was I supposed to save some for you?

Turkey Bacon Club Sandwich (aka: TurkeyMaster)

8 slices sourdough bread *
1 lb deli sliced turkey
8 slices cooked bacon
4 slices provolone cheese
1/2 head shredded iceberg lettuce
mayo to taste

*Often times in our area we can only get large rounds of sliced sourdough (I used cracked wheat sourdough today), resulting in bread slices that are twice the size of typical sandwich bread. In this case, 4 slices of bread will work just fine, slice them in half and proceed as per above - each "half" now constituting a "whole" sandwich.




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