This week’s recipe for Cook the Book Fridays comes from Dorie Greenspan’s latest cookbook, Everyday Dorie and was the perfect dish to prepare on a hot, steamy early summer evening for an outdoor catchup with good friends (now we’re allowed up to 10 outside!). Luang Prabang Chicken-Chili Sandwiches are inspired by Dorie’s time in Luang Prabang, Laos and, having visited there in 2009, I was interested to try these out. I can’t say I remember eating these when we were there but I might have.
Of an evening routine that she and her son Joshua adopted when visiting Luang Prabang, Dorie says:
We’d go to the night market, stroll among the vendors for a while, and then turn into the alley where the food merchants set up. The sandwich ladies were at the entrance. Each woman would start putting together a sandwich only when the order came in. The process would start with one of them slicing a bamboo-skewered grilled chicken breast into long strips. Next would come the bread, a soft, almost squishy half-baguette. She’d open the bread wide and place it on the palm of her left hand, then get to work slathering both sides with mayonnaise and hot chile paste, covering the bread with slices of chicken moistened with a little sweet chili sauce, rounds of tomato, and long slices of cucumber, tucking in some lettuce and finishing it all off with a prolonged squeeze of sweet chili sauce. Then, the final touch: She’d close the sandwich with a rectangle of paper torn from a magazine and secure the whole bundle with a rubber band.
The “recipe” for the sandwich is not so much a formal recipe but it’s more a list of the ingredients and the order in which they are to be layered on the sandwich. Dorie uses chicken breast roasted expressly for this recipe but I’d say that next time I have some lefotver roast chicken around I’ll be remembering this recipe since we have most of these ingredients on hand most of the time!
These are fun to make (and lovely and colourful) and super fun to serve wrapped in parchment tightly then fastened with an elastic band – the DO need a little bit of time for all the flavours to meld and 15 or so minutes does the trick. Then, because they are messy to eat, the parchment makes for a much cleaner experience!
We LOVED these! Definitely remembering this combo for future summer sandwich suppers!
Get the recipe for Dorie Greenspan’s Luang Prabang Chicken-Chili Sandwiches on page 106 of Everyday Dorie or here.
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Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of “Everyday Dorie” for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book, nor am I being compensated for doing so. All opinions 100% my own.
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There are enough sandwiches here for an outdoor party. The parchment wrap is a nice touch to keep everything in place. I also like how the red cabbage stands out among the greens.
They look very good to me. Now I’m hungry.
I totally agree…I used leftover chicken I already had which was a perfect way to use it up.
Loved your pictures of Laos. I also visit food stalls when I travel. Looks like you mixed some chili sauce or siracha sauce into your mayonnaise, I did the same thing. We enjoyed these.
We are ALL about the markets when we visit other countries! And yes, the recipe said to mix the sriracha with the mayo.. didn’t it? Well, in any case it’s a great “hack” that we use quite often!