The Vietnamese sandwich gets its heritage from French croques. The traditional banh mi includes a smearing of liver pate. But the signature part of a banh mi is really the sweet and sour crunchy pickles.
Chef’s tip: Removing some of the bread from the middle allows you to stuff more of the goodness into the sandwich. Store-bought rotiserrie chicken will help you reduce the time to prepare the sandwich by half!
Chicken and Marinade:
1 large chicken breast, bone-in, skin-on
1 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons canola oil
Pickles:
½ medium carrot, julienne thin
½ medium daikon, julienne thin
½ teaspoon kosher salt
3 Tablespoons sugar
½ cup white vinegar
¼ cup warm water
¼ English cucumber, julienne thin
1 jalapeno, seeded, julienne thin
½ cup cilantro leaves
Mayonnaise:
2 egg yolk
2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh coriander, minced
1 French baguettes or 5 mini dinner rolls
1 tablespoons liquid amino
¼ pound fine-textured chicken pâté, thinly sliced (optional)
Preparing the chicken:
1. Preheat oven 350F
2. Place chicken breast on a baking sheet, rub skin with salt, pepper and oil. Roast for 35-40 minutes until chicken is just cooked (190F).
3. Remove the meat from the bones, discard skin and shred the chicken.
Preparing the pickles and vegetables:
4. Julienne the carrot and daikon into shoe-string strips about 1/8 x 1/8 x 3 inches
5. Sprinkle salt and 1 tablespoons sugar over the carrots and daikon, mix well and let it sit for 5 mins.
6. Rinse with cool water, pat dry.
7. Dissolve the sugar with the warm water, then add the vinegar. Pour vinegar mix over the carrot daikon mix and let sit at least 1 hour.
8. In the meantime, remove seeds from cucumber and slice cucumber into thin long strips.
9. Remove seeds from jalapeno and make thin juliennes. Remove tough stems from cilantro.
Preparing the mayonnaise:
10. In a medium bowl, whisk the yolk, mustard and 1 tablespoon olive oil together until an emulsion is formed.
11. Combine the olive oil and the canola oil in a measuring cup. While whisking the egg emulsion, add the oil mixture in a steady, thin stream. Make sure not to add the oil too quickly – add enough to the emulsion and make sure it is blended smoothly before adding more oil. Continue to add the oil in a steady stream, whisking, until all of the oil has been added.
12. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the chopped coriander and lemon zest.
Assembly:
13. Split the baguette, then remove a little of the bread centers.
14. Spread the cut sides of the bread with mayonnaise and layer the sliced pâté on the bottom halves, sprinkle on some liquid amino, then stuff with the shredded chicken, pickles, cucumber, cilantro and a strip or two of jalapeno.
15. Cut baguette into 3 inch pieces, or if using dinner rolls, cut into 2.
Makes 10 mini sandwiches
