Cooking For Engineers

[IndyRob]

Little Caesars is obviously known for their pizzas, but I've discovered that their italian sandwiches are actually my favorite item. Unfortunately, in my area, almost all of the Little Caesars have gone away and the few that are left don't carry the sandwiches.

The inside of the sandwiches don't harbor any surprises. As usual for an Italian sandwich in the U.S., you've got some salami, ham, cheese, onions, tomatoes and lettuce. But what really made this sandwich stand out for me was the bread.

From the shape, I felt the bread was clearly made with pizza dough. But the texture was totally unlike a pizza. Soft and velvety and warm. Well, warm if you order it that way - and if you don't, IMHO, you haven't gotten the magic. I imagine the fact that the default cold-sandwich state has prevented them from making this item much more popular. I just gave one of my newly minted clones to my wife and she asked "Now, what are you calling this? So I can order it again...." Well, of course it's the

Little Caesar's Italian Sandwich

Bread:

500g Bread (or unbleached) Flour
10g Olive Oil
340g Warm Water
4g Yeast
?g Salt
Melted Butter

For a mixer with a dough hook, I placed the mixing bowl on my scale and measured in the flour, oil, water and yeast. Starting with the dough hook seemed to prove adequate. After 5 minutes of needing (to let the yeast run away and hide), I added the salt. I measured by eye a few large pinches of kosher salt (sorry, no exact measurement - this was just how it happened). tasting a little piece of dough, I added just a little more. You want to just taste the salt a little bit. Knead another five minutes (10 minutes total).

Cover bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for an hour or until doubled in bulk. Then turn out onto a floured surface, punch down and cut into three equal pieces. Roll out each piece into a 8 inch diameter pizza. Then use a pizza cutter to cut each pizza in half to make half-moon shapes.

Arrange the half-moons on a baking sheet sprayed with non-stick oil. Cover with another baking sheet. Let rise about one hour. Preheat oven to 450.

Just before baking, brush the tops with melted butter. Bake for about 20 minutes until golden. Remove from oven and brush both sides with melted butter. Let cool completely on a rack.

At this point you could bag up the bread an refrigerate for later use. Or continue...

Using a serrated knife, carefully cut into the flat side of the half-moon to make a sort of pita pocket. Line the bottom with provolone or mozzarella, then some thinly sliced salami and then some thinly sliced ham.

Again, at this point you could refrigerate the sandwiches and save for later use. When ready to eat:

Slice a tomato, slice or dice and onion and tear off some lettuce leaves. Wrap a sandwich in a paper towel and microwave 30-45 seconds. You're just trying to warm the sandwich and get the cheese to melt (any more is too much). This microwave step is actually critical. It will make the bread steamy and soft. Remove sandwich, stuff with the veg and enjoy with chips.