The Impatient Chef Food Frolic: The Anatomy of a BLT

The Impatient Chef: Anatomy of a BLT

Some would ask "why bother with the BLT?"  It's so simple.  It has 3, no wait, 4, ingredients including the bread.  But, there's mayo, that makes 5.  You can put onion on it.  That makes it  BLOT (pronounced as written).  Subtract Onion, and add avocado.  That makes it a BLAT (see previous pronouncement guide).  If you add both onion, and avocado, it becomes, yes, you guessed it, a BLOAT.  Add some salt and pepper...  BLOSPAT?  Well, you get the picture.

So, let's start this anatomy lesson with a simple listing of parts:

Basic Parts

Okay, that wasn't the one I was looking for. Let me see...  Ah!  Here it is:

The Correct List

Let's start with the essentials.  First: the bacon.  The bacon should be uncured.  There has been research that has pointed to chemical curing with sodium nitrites leading to cancer.  The jury is still out on this, but why take the chance?  In my opinion, uncured bacon also tastes better.

The other controversy surrounding bacon is thick slices versus thin.  I prefer thinly (but not too thin) sliced bacon for BLT's.  I've had thick bacon come out of the sandwich as a slab when I bit into it, and I don't want to have to rebuild my sandwich constantly.  I have learned over time that slightly thinner is better.

Pepper bacon versus just bacon.  Your choice.  Both are heavenly.

Next comes bread: I prefer a good sourdough.  You want a bread without a meaty crust for the same reason you want thinner bacon.  There's nothing more annoying than having your sandwich self-destruct as you struggle to gnaw off the first bite, and the first bite has other ideas.  BLT's are not internally self-adhesive.  Why make it even harder?  This being said, if you use mass-marketed, sappy white bread, you're missing out on a lot of taste.

Don't toast your bread too long.  I find that a lighter toast makes it easier to keep the sandwich together.

Mayo:  This is where I part ways with most foodies.  The best mayo in the world, other than what you can make at home, is available at any grocery store in the known universe.  West of the Mississippi it's called Best Foods; in the east it's called Hellmann's.  You really can't go wrong with it.  It has flavor while not getting in the way of the rest of the sandwich, and it isn't greasy.  Use Miracle Whip only if you have an allergy to regular mayo.

Lettuce:  Romaine.  Fresh.  Organic.  Experiment with spinach, arugula, or even some exotic lettuces, but romaine, even the crinkly type, is always an excellent choice.

Tomato:  I prefer locally-raised, and / or heirloom tomatoes.  I want flavor.  In the late summer to early fall, I get them from my itsy-bitsy garden.  Other times, I try to find any tomato that wasn't bred for shelf life.  The standard, supermarket tomatoes (you know the anemic tennis balls that taste like cardboard aspic) are simply not worthy of a good bacon.  I prefer brandywine tomatoes.  Warning, the juice from these will run down your chin, but... Oh. My. Lord.  They are good.  Experiment.  Find your favorite.  Skip the tennis balls.

Extras:  

Pepper: I have found that salt and pepper are not actually extras, but some folks may think they are.  I keep two pepper grinders in the kitchen.  One is set on coarse grind, and one on medium.  I use the coarse on BLT's to get a bigger flavor.

The Other Ones

Salt: I buy kosher salt, sometimes from Pensey's, and sometimes from whoever carries the large flake, or coarse version.  I use different coarsenesses for different purposes.  For the BLT, I want a coarse flake salt.  It adds an occasional little crunch accompanied by a salty goodness that brings out the best in the tomato.

As mentioned before, onions and avocados also go nicely on BLT's.  They are truly extras, and many times serve only to make the sandwich fly apart when you least expect it.  Despite the challenge that they provide, they can still be good on a BLT.  I prefer red onions and ripe avocados.

A barely ripe, or tack hard avocado is not edible.  Some attention must be paid to learning when one is ripe.  Usually, you find out that avocados are ripe in retrospect, as in "Oh, this was ripe yesterday.  Now, its a mass of blackened goo."  Getting your avocado fingers is kind of like getting your sea legs.  You have to give it time, and fall down a lot.

I hope this tour of the anatomy of the BLT has been helpful.

--The Impatient Chef.