Improved California Veggie Sandwich

Revisiting a staple of my SoCal '80s childhood

Hello, readers and cooks! This is a recipe week, and in addition to the little “bonus” salad I sent out on Tuesday, I’m sharing a recipe from my own kitchen—a reinvigorated version of one of the classic California foods of my childhood.

Next week I’ll send out a fun interview I did with the co-owner of Umami Mart—a Japanese barware, sake, and shochu store in Oakland—along with a recipe she gave me for kitsune soba. Until then, I hope this sandwich inspires you to revisit some of the foods you grew up with. (If you do, please tell me how it goes.) Enjoy!

Improved California Veggie Sandwich

Like many 70s and 80s kids, I grew up on a lot of hippie food. We ate lots of lentils, endless pots of bland brown rice, some oddly rubbery pan-fried tofu with soy sauce. To be fair, my mom is actually a spectacular cook; there was just something about the “health food” of that era that invited blandness.

One of the staples of this type of eating, in CA at least, was the veggie sandwich—or what I used to call the “sprout sandwich.” This combination of avocado, cheese, vegetables, and endless amounts of sprouts, served (always) on rough whole wheat bread, was so common here that when the rest of the country started making it, people called it a California Vegetable Sandwich.

I don’t know about you, but this was not the kind of sandwich I wanted as a kid. For one thing, it didn’t hold up well in my backpack. By the time lunch rolled around, the avocado was brown and the vegetables were soggy, while the bread, somehow, was stiff and stale. But mostly, I hated the sandwich because I couldn’t stand the sprouts. The tangle of hair-like alfalfa sprouts that topped these sandwiches stuck in my teeth and created an unpleasant mouthfeel. I dreaded them.

Fast forward a few decades, and hippie food is back—and much better, thanks to our vastly improved understanding of how to cook these ingredients. With this resurgence, I’m starting to see the California sandwich show up on menus again, often with clever additions like creamy dressings or marinated beets. Feeling inspired, I decided to revisit my childhood lunch nemesis and see if I could find a better way to make it.

While some versions of this sandwich call for hummus or goat cheese (a newer addition), I decided to stick with the Jack cheese and avocado combo of my youth, then play with the vegetables and sauces to make them zestier and more flavorful. I felt that the sandwich (like most foods) would be improved by a little acid—and maybe some heat. I kept the carrots and the lettuce; bumped up the flavor of the mayonnaise with some lemon, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce (for umami); and added vinegar by swapping in a Salvadoran curtido (the pickled cabbage most Californians know as a side to eat with pupusas). I also drizzled in some chile crisp—because everything is better with chile crisp. Lastly, I swapped the alfalfa sprouts (which I still don’t like) for thicker, slightly crunchy radish sprouts.

The result is fantastic. It has all the flavor and healthiness of the original with brighter, more complex notes from the lemon juice, flavored mayonnaise, pickled vegetables, and chile. It’s not a sandwich I’d ever put in my daughter’s lunch bag (it would still get soggy and brown), but I’ll happily eat it as a work-from-home treat any day.

Big Disclaimer: The ingredient amounts below are just general guidelines. Avocados, carrots, pickles, and loaves of bread come in all different sizes, and you should add as much or as little of each ingredient as you can (semi-)comfortably fit in your sandwich.

Makes 1 sandwich

1 heaping tablespoon mayonnaise
1 small clove garlic
Kosher salt
1 Meyer (or regular) lemon, halved for juicing
Worcestershire sauce
2 slices whole wheat bread
Thick slices of Monterey Jack cheese (3 to 3 1/2 ounces total)
1/2 avocado, peeled and sliced
1 sweet, flavorful carrot, grated or shredded
1 large romaine leaf
1/2 cup fresh or store-bought curtido (see recipe below)
1 dill pickle, thinly sliced
2 to 3 tablespoons roughly chopped radish sprouts (or other sprouts of your choosing)
Chile crisp (ideally a style with a toasty flavor and some Sichuan peppercorn, such as Boon Chili Oil)

1. Make a flavored mayonnaise: Put the mayonnaise in a small bowl or a jar and grate the garlic into it, using a microplane. (Alternatively, crush the garlic to a paste in a mortar and pestle before adding it.) Season the mayonnaise with a pinch of salt, a generous squeeze of lemon juice, and a shake of Worcestershire sauce. Taste the mayonnaise and adjust the seasonings as necessary; the mixture should be zesty and flavorful. Generously spread the mayonnaise on one side of each piece of bread.

2. Build the sandwich on one piece of the bread: Put the cheese on the bread in an even layer, followed by the avocado. Squeeze a little more lemon juice onto the avocado, and add a thick thatch of grated carrot.

3. Remove the center rib from the romaine leaf and place the soft part of the leaf on top of the carrot. Use the leaf as a surface to create a thick layer of curtido, then add slices of pickle and a good sprinkling of sprouts.

4. Spoon a little chile crisp onto the mayonnaise on the other piece of bread (as much or as little as you like), spread it out with a butter knife, and add the bread to the top of the sandwich.

Note: This is a messy sandwich full of things that don’t like to stick together. Your eating experience will be better if you wrap it in butcher paper or hold it together with toothpicks.

Super Simple Curtido

Makes ~2 cups (enough for 8 sandwiches)

This Salvadorian pickle is quick and easy, and this version—with only cabbage and onion—is one of its simplest forms. It can be used after just a few minutes or stored in the refrigerator, in an airtight container, for up to a week.

2 packed cups thinly sliced cabbage
1/4 red onion, very thinly sliced
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
Large pinch kosher salt

1. Heat a few cups of water in a pot or kettle, and put the cabbage in a fine mesh strainer. When the water boils, slowly pour it over the cabbage (holding the strainer over the sink), taking care to make sure that all the cabbage is rinsed equally; this will blanch the cabbage. Rinse the cabbage with cold water, then squeeze it well to remove excess moisture.

2. Combine the cabbage and the onion in a medium, non-reactive bowl. Add the vinegar, oregano, and salt, and mix everything well. Let the curtido sit, mixing it once in a while so that all of the cabbage is flavored by the vinegar, for at least 10 minutes (ideally 30 minutes or longer) before using.
   

Other California Recipes to Cook This Week

It seems I’m not the only one with vegetable sandwiches on the mind; this week’s Fresca newsletter features a recipe for eggplant cemitas with carrot escabeche that looks fantastic. If you want something heartier, check out the summery chicken pot pie in the LA Times (which Ben Mims calls an antidote to June gloom) or this apricot tart from the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Photo: Georgia Freedman