FOREIGN foods, supposedly delicious, are bloody awkward to slap between slices of Hovis Farmhouse Batch. These are grudgingly workable:
Coq au vin
A classic french dish consisting of chicken in a pointless red wine sauce because they burn the booze off. Traditionally served with bacon, so lob a leg into a bacon butty. Precisely laid rashers will act as a sauce-proof bottom-sheet to protect the load-bearing slice from collapsing. Bon appetit. Which is French.
Difficulty rating: four
Pappardelle al Cinghiale
The earthy, rich Italian flavours of this Tuscan pasta and wild boar ragu is a builder’s dream. Al dente pappardelle strips are double-sided sticky seals laid across the base slice, or latticed if you’re poncey. Infill with boar chunks before pushing the top slice down hard. Eat on a moor overlooking a mill town, as in Tuscany.
Difficulty rating: six
Crab soufflé with a beef dripping jus
This filling is, frankly, farting above its arsehole. Light, fluffy and suspect, it does have a solid backing of beef dripping as chips used to be done in back when there were mines. Hoist a chunk of this onto your slice and hold gingerly, like a woman’s arm in public.
Difficulty rating: eight
Pho
As tough as it gets. Ideally put together in the back yard to avoid mess. Use crusts, wear hi-viz, prepare with butter and remember it’s about noodle count per square inch. Enhance with a squeeze of lime if you must.
Difficulty rating: nine
Steak-and-kidney pie, chips, peas, gravy and Yorkshire pudding
You could put the lot inside a big Yorkshire pudding and squash them between two oven-bottom barms, if you’re lazy or in a Harvester. Engineers, such as used to build ships up here before Thatcher, would instead squeeze the pie into the pudding and place upside-down on bread. Add a drystone wall of chips. Fill the gap with peas. Saturate with gravy.
Difficulty rating: zero, if you had the good fortune to be born north of Crewe
