Chicken Salad Sandwich

Chicken salad on croissant by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Sandwiches get us through the day – from the ubiquitous fast food offering of a breakfast sandwich, to ham and cheese at lunch and meatball subs for supper, whatever meal you’re preparing, there’s a sandwich for it.

Susan Russo, author of the new "Encyclopedia of Sandwiches: Recipes, History and Trivia for Everything Between Sliced Bread" (Quirk, 2011) and blogger at Food Blogga knows this well. “The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches is a belly-filling book of over 100 of the world's most beloved sandwiches," she said recently. "It's got all sorts of tasty sandwich trivia, history and recipes.”

Food photographer and blogger Matt Armandariz (Matt Bites) photographed every sandwich for the book, artfully and attractively. Perhaps the handiest feature of the book is the alphabetic listing with colored index tabs along the page edge – looking for a Fluffernutter? – flip to “F.” Have a hankering for a Hamburger and its 8 variations, including vegetarian? Just skim to “H.”

Along the way, readers can pick up some helpful history, such as the origin of the Fluffernutter: “In 1913 brother and sister Armory and Emma Curtis opened the Curtis Marshmallow Factory, and their most popular product was Snowflake Marshmallow Creme, a spreadable marshmallow confection which Emma suggested would be delicious paired with peanut and sandwiched between two slices of white bread. They tried it. People loved it. And eventually it became known as the Fluffernutter, a trademark of Durkee-Mower Inc., the maker of Marshmallow Fluff.”

Narrowing the field of recipes to try, I lighted on chicken salad, the Southern standard, and served it to my writer friends for our ladies' lunch. Russo’s recipe delivers a delicious chicken salad filled with cranberries and pecans, and she assures me that it’s from the Loveless Café, in Nashville, Tennessee,  one of my all-time favorite restaurants (don't even get me started on Loveless biscuits, dripping with homemade blackberry preserves).

Chicken Salad
from "The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches" by Susan Russo

4 cups (2 ½ pounds) diced cooked chicken

1 cup finely diced celery

½ cup sweet pickle relish

1 cup mayonnaise

¾ cup dried cranberries, such as Craisins

½ Vidalia onion, finely diced (about ½ cup)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup pecan pieces, optional

8 slices white or whole grain bread, or 4 croissants

1. Combine chicken salad ingredients in a bowl. Cover and chill at least hours to let flavors meld.

2. To make each sandwich, scoop about ¾ to 1 cup chicken salad onto a slice of toasted to untoasted bread and top with a second slice of bread. Makes 4 sandwiches.

Be sure to check out these upcoming sandwich stories, also from "The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches."

• Pound Cake Sandwiches stuffed with strawberries
• The Jucy Lucy cheeseburger (that's right, Jucy)

Have bento, will travel

Turkey bento

Once the calendar flips over to November, we seem to be in a Thanksgiving tizzy. I love the holidays, but in recent years have taken a relaxed approach. It helps when the feast is located at a house other than mine. We’re fortunate, my husband and I, that our families are nearby and it’s just a matter of driving a few miles and showing up with food. This year, we’ll roast the turkey to burnished perfection, wrap up the bird, place it in the cooler and drive 15 minutes to my mom’s house.

As much as I love being close to home during the holidays, there are times when I think it would be grand to stick my toes in the sand the last Thursday in November. To sip a frosty drink, relax with a frivolous magazine and stare at a Pacific blue sky. It must be an accident of birth, surely, that I was born in Tennessee and not in Hawaii, where my heart belongs.

Let’s just pretend, for a few paragraphs, that I’m getting my wish for my upcoming wedding anniversary - a trip to Hawaii. Hawaii, the 50th state, home of pristine beaches, volcanoes and SPAM. That's right, mainlanders, Hawaii is the largest U.S.  market for SPAM. In fact, the savory pork in a tin is referred to as "Hawaiian steak." The Pacific popularity of the canned “SPiced hAM” began during World War II when 100 million pounds of the tinned meat were shipped abroad to feed Allied troops.

SPAM is universal and it’s a product that I grew up with - Pan-Fried SPAMwiches with mayo on white bread being a specialty of my father’s cooking repertoire. (I kind of miss the dangerous-seeming old packaging with the pull tab that zipped off the wall of the can.)

I'm homebound this holiday, but I can dream up some yummy travel snacks inspired by Hawaii's favorite meat and the Japanese tradition of bento - small portable foods, usually made with rice and known as much for their artistry as their taste.

I fried sliced SPAM in my homemade teriyaki sauce, then chopped the meat and used it as a filling in onigiri (rice balls) and also in the Hawaiian portable snack musubi, SPAM slices with rice and nori. There's a lot to learn to making onigiri and musubi, and especially bento. The techniques and recipes are simple, but much too involved to write about here - check out this excellent tutorial  from Just Bento on forming the rice balls.

SPAM musubi is a plank of teriyaki fried meat and a finger of rice bound together with nori. This portable tropical treat is simple to make - nori is difficult to find at my local upermarkets, so I subbed blanched bok choy.

SPAM musubi

Teriyaki Sauce

Fry SPAM slices in this flavorful teriyaki sauce and use in fillings for onigiri 
and also as a dipping sauce.

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
2 tsp. toasted sesame oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced

1. Combine all ingredients. Keep in glass jar in refrigerator or freezer. Use as marinade for SPAM, chicken or salmon or steak or vegetables. Put on ice cream. (just kidding).

Onigiri with noodles and vegetables.

Dessert is light and simple, a cornstarch-thickened coconut pudding with sliced bananas and grapes. Use the cute small containers and keep refrigerated.

Coconut Pudding with Bananas and Grapes

4 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1 ½ cups water
1 (12 oz.) can coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Bananas and grapes for garnish

1. In a bowl, stir together sugar, cornstarch and water.

2. In a saucepan over medium heat, pour in coconut milk and add sugar - water mixture. Whisk constantly until mixture is thickened. Stir in vanilla and let cool. Spoon into small cups, layering bananas in cups and topping with sliced grapes. Seal individual portions. Keep refrigerated.

All text & images copyright 2010, Lucy Mercer.

The coconut pudding recipe is adapted from "Yum-Yum Bento Box" by Maki Ogawa and Crystal Watanabe (Quirk Books, 2010).

For bento inspiration, check out Just Bento.com.