"Eat. You may want a bib" Food.com
"Unhealthy food at its very best" Travelling Claus
I'm still in the tidying up my email mode. This one is a Christmassy newsletter from the Ottolenghi juggernaut in which Ottolenghi himself says of Christmas leftovers, from which this particular Floating Boxing Day sandwich is constructed:
"The same food the next day, as leftovers, is less daunting—and I have to say it—more delicious."
He gives the credit to one of his OTK team, Jake and you can watch him making it on Instagram.
In a way I was completely repulsed by the concept, of a crispy overloaded cheese toasty floating in an oniony sauce. Crisp and sauce doesn't really go together for me. Although I suppose when I think about it I do sometimes like to dip something crispy into a thick sauce. Or perhaps have a small amount of creamy sauce around some crispy fish or chicken. Not that much sauce though. By the time you get to the end the whole thing would surely be soggy.
Ottolenghi's version of what I now know is a Portuguese dish, has slices of turkey and ham in the sandwich with brussels sprouts mixed in with the cheese, and the gravy is an onion and tomato thing, with, I think, beer. A kind of French onion soup he describes it as.
But yes, it's Portuguese. Jake remembered it from his travels there as an ubiquitous but always slightly different snack food, eaten by almost everyone as an afternoon snack. Dinner is served late in Portugal you see, so everyone tucks into this to stave off hunger. And they eat dinner too? There are enough calories in this dish to last you the whole day. Probably more. The one shown here is apparently award winning and comes from a café called Catarinha Café. Because it's a café thing - as one writer said - the sort of place where the television is on the wall and the tables are very plain.
It's called a Francesinha, which means little Frenchie. Which is a little ironic considering its origins. Little it is not. But it does have an interesting history:
"In the 1950s and 60s, António Salazar’s harsh, myopic dictatorship turned millions of Portuguese into migrants: by 1970 – when the population of Lisbon numbered barely 800,000 – at least 700,000 of them were living in France. As well as money, the migrants sent home elements of French culture, and Portuenses took the croque monsieur to their hearts." Kevin Gould/The Guardian
One of those 'refugees' who eventually returned home after Salazar's death in 1968 and the Carnation Revolution of 1974 was Daniel David de Silva who missed his croque monsieur and soon adapted it to Portuguese tastes. The Francesinha was born. Wikipedia describes it thus:
"made with layers of toasted bread and assorted hot meats such as roast, steak, wet-cured ham, linguiça, or chipolata over which sliced cheese is melted by the ladling of a near-boiling tomato-and-beer sauce called molho de francesinha It is typically served with french fries." Wikipedia
And Wikipedia doesn't mention the fried egg which is often placed on top as well.
What I find so amazing is that I did not find a single person who either found the idea repulsive or who didn't like it. Even the reddit community, who whatever else you might say, is generally honest in their opinion however it is expressed, thought it wonderful.
Anthony Bourdain famously tried this version at Café O Alfonso in Porto - the town where the Francesinha was born. With some trepidation it has to be said, but he pronounced it good, in his series Parts Unknown thus turning that particular café into a tourist destination.
There doesn't seem to be a definitive recipe for this dish. Everyone has their own version. The only constants seem to be white bread, with layers of meat - lots of different kinds of meats, that can include sausages of endless variety, ham - ditto, even steak or roast beef, plus lots of layers of cheese on top, over which the hot sauce is poured. It's not grilled. The only constants in the sauce seem to be tomato and beer, sometimes it's spicy, sometimes not.
Having discovered the source of my starting recipe from the Ottolenghi team, I now see that his version is relatively constrained. But if you want to give it a go in a properly Portuguese way you can try the Francesinha of Audrey Bourget on the SBS website.
There is not much more to say other than a few words on the irony of the name - Little Frenchie.
Obviously it is not little. However the French part of the name equation - the Croque monsieur on which it is based is considerably smaller - hence the irony. SBS has two versions from two of our top French chefs - Guillaume Brahimi and Philippe Mouchel - both rather simpler and appetising - a cheese and ham toastie really, but with a bit of French finesse.
I'm obviously showing my French leanings here, but then again what is wrong with junk food every now and then? And surely the Francesinha qualifies as junk food - even Ottolenghi's version.
If you live in Sydney you can try it at Gloria's. Gloria has retired but her son now runs the restaurant, and Gloria in an interview about the Francesihna on the SBS website said of it:
"While you could make a francesinha at home, she says there's nothing quite like having it out: "There's a different feeling when you have it at a restaurant or a snack bar. You can have a beer at home or a beer at a bar; it's not the same. It's like that with a francesinha, you want to have it out." Gloria Belinha
Or maybe she was just promoting her restaurant. I'm sure there are Portuguese restaurants in Melbourne somewhere.
Ottolenghi, on the other hand claims he eats his floating sandwich on Boxing Day - his favourite day of the year, after his birthday when:
"I’ve settled onto the sofa with a plate of leftovers balanced precariously on my lap, a child on each side and The Big Bang Theory on the screen"
I guess it's that kind of food. But I don't think I shall be trying it anytime soon. Just too, too much for me. I really should start making cheese toasties though because I do like those, though I prefer tomato in mine rather than ham.
YEARS GONE BY
February 23
2024 - Living in a tourist town
2023 - Nothing
2022 - Nothing
2019 - Nothing
Did not know this while in Portugal. Methinks I didn’t miss much
Not into Portugese or Spanish food, which I find is like there very similar languages - difficult to understand, even though they are both Romance languages and share their Roman (=Latin) ancestry! 😂