Love unique sandwiches? While it is not necessary to make the sandwich or even eat the sandwich, for reasons unknown, I find it nice knowing that there are other who like these things too! Have you had the pleasure of a “St. Paul”? Apparently you can only find this in St. Louis, Missouri. And even then, only in some old time Chinese restaurants. What is it you might ask, well it is a large amount of egg foo young on some white bread along with tomatoes, lettuce and mayonnaise. Sometimes a slice of good old American cheese is added in. How about the “chow mein sandwich”, ever heard of that one? this sandwich is apparently a very common item on menus along Route 195 (Southern Mass.) and it isn’t confined to just Chinese restaurants either. As you might already know there is no end to these bizarre sandwiches, from peanut butter and onions, peanut butter with pickles to peanut butter, jelly and crushed potato chips!
Included in the list might be one of the most bizarre, the “Avraham Karadi” sandwich (A.K.A. Avi Karadi sandwich). It seems like it may have been created as a gourmet sandwich as it involves a tremendous amount of time and effort to gather and prepare the ingredients. I simply could not see anyone actually enjoying the resulting sandwich, but that’s just me as there has been talk that it is popular in some locations. Here is the list of ingredients:
Passum, a sweet wine sauce from ancient Roman times. This is produced by boiling the must (whole fruits including the seeds, stems, and leaves pressed) and then adding honey in order to thicken it up.
Garum, an old Roman fish sauce (salty), approximated today by mixing in fish paste, passum (as discussed above) and oregano.
An ancient Roman standby, Pine nut sauce, is made by mixing in vinegar, honey and pine nuts as well as a bit of pepper and lovage.
Finally, spinach, onions, along with lettuce and tomatoes as desired, with rye bread being the usual, though black Russian bread seems to be a distant second favorite. Egg paste, such as found in egg salad, is sometimes used as well. Pastrami or roast beef are favorite meats to use. There are a few variations on the recipe, but they all use most of these ingredients. Curiously enough, I could not find out where the nickname of this sandwich, the “Avraham Karadi” or “Avi Karadi” came from.
1. Make the passum: Cook a quart of grape juice, reducing it to one-tenth its original volume. Add honey to taste.
Step Two: Making the Garum: Take the Passum and add two tablespoons of fish paste and a pinch of oregano.
3. The Pine Nut Sauce: For three hours, in vinegar, soak the pine nuts. Now mix with honey, while adding dashes of pepper and lovage.
4. The Sandwich: Put your egg paste on the bread. Put in your choice of meat, add vegetables, pour on passum, garum, and pine nut sauce, and be generous.
There you have it an “Avraham Karadi” (aka “Avi Karadi”) sandwich, enjoy!
