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| Alfredo Sauce
Butter, cream, cheese, and garlic have become the fundamental ingredients of this rich sauce (which originally was only butter, eggs, and cheese). It is best known for topping fettuccine noodles, but is also great on other-shaped pastas as well as on vegetables, chicken, and seafood.
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| Amighetti Special
Amighetti's is a landmark sandwich shop in St. Louis' Italian neighborhood, known as the hill. Leading the menu is one called the Amighetti Special, which is ham, roast beef, salami, a couple of cheeses, a spill of hot pepperoncinis, and – the kicker – Amighetti's tangy-sweet house dressing.
The dressing is great on almost any hearty cold-cut sandwich, and can be refrigerated for several days (although it loses its punch over time). This recipe, which we believe pretty well duplicates Amighetti's proprietary one, makes about 1 cup. That should be enough for 3 or 4 foot-long heroes.
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| Antipasto Platter
No longer need shoppers hunt down a salumeria or pork store in the Italian part of town to find meats for a good antipasto platter. Such once-exotic salamis and sausages are found in many good supermarket deli cases. Of course the best meats are still found behind the counter of true Italian butchers.
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| Antipasto Salad
Chicago likes big salads, especially big salads that have lots of ingredients not normally found in a typical bowl of rabbit-food greens. This one includes virtually all the meats and even cheese from an antipasto platter, plus greens. Make sure all the ingredients are diced very fine. Your goal should be to have nearly some of everything on every forkful.
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| Blueberry Dessert
Although devised by the Hard Labor Creek Blueberry Farm of Social Circle, this layered sweet, known simply as blueberry dessert, will be a familiar kind of recipe to home cooks all around the country. You want to use the freshest, sweetest berries you can get (preferably just-picked); but you also must use Cool Whip. Don't even think of substituting whipped cream for the white stuff in a tub. The concordance of the cream cheese / Cool Whip layer with the nutty / sweet foundation and popping fresh berries on top is an only-in-America harmony. In some parts of the country, they'd call this dessert a torte.
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| Cheddar Corn Pancakes
Cheddar corn pancakes are a delicious legacy of Gail's Station House of West Redding and Ridgefield, Connecticut. They are sweet and savory and even more delicious when blanketed with warm maple syrup.
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| Chivito
The chivito is a flabbergasting hot Dagwood that combines the triple joy of a BLT, a cheese steak, and a ham and cheese sandwich all on one bun! Fernando Peryera, who was inspired to offer this sandwich at his restaurant, The Olive Market, in Georgetown, Connecticut, recommends serving the monumental creation with French fries; but chips are perfectly appropriate.
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| Chocolate Chip Cheesecake
Looking for a way to have your cheesecake and eat chocolate, too? There are some of us for whom no dessert is fully satisfying unless it pays homage to the cocoa bean.
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| Cincinnati Chili
Bearing no resemblance to any Southwestern-style “bowl of red,” Cincinnati chili often is called five-way because there are five separate layers in its full configuration. No Cincinnati chili cook will give out his recipe, but this one comes pretty close to the superlative five-way served at our favorite Queen City chili parlor, Camp Washington.
Oyster crackers are the traditional garnish, and the proper companion beverage is a milk shake or sweet soda pop.
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| Crab Melt
The better the crabmeat, the more delicious the sandwich. At the Cottage in LaJolla, California, rock crabmeat is preferred. Dungeness crab would work fine, too. If using canned crab, be sure you rinse it well and drain away any excess water.
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| Croque Monsieur
Food historians believe the croque monsieur originally was served early in the 20th century in a Paris cafe. Since that time it has became a favorite quick, inexpensive hot meal for students, travelers on a budget, and goopy cheese lovers.
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| Dakota Burger
Junellia Meisenhoelder, chef and proprietor at the Sport Bowl Cafe didn't tell us why this delightfully simple beef sandwich is known as a burger, but there is no point quibbling about labels. Since getting the formula from her, we think of Dakota burgers any time we have leftover roast beef or, better still, pot roast. The more tender the meat, the better!
While it is possible to make a Dakota burger on an interesting bakery bun or even a Portuguese roll or small foccaccia, we highly recommend using supermarket-bought hamburger rolls. This is a case where you want bread that is little more than a soft muffler for the meat inside. And the fundamental gentleness of the beef precludes using bread that would require serious chewing.
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| Grilled Ham & Cheese
At the S&S Dugout, ham and beef are sliced to order for every sandwich, and they are available either cold or hot. We definitely recommend the latter. A key element in making a ham sandwich the S&S way is to slice the meat ultra-thin and mix it up well. Reminiscent of the chip-chopped ham of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the pale pink leaves must not be layered flat, but should be clumped together like the petals of a rose.
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| Ham & Beef & Cheese Double Decker
While lesser known than chili outside of Cincinnati, the double decker is every bit as big a deal to Queen City chowhounds. As the name suggests, it is a variation of the club sandwich: three slices of bread interleaved with multiple ingredients, almost always constructed in such a way that the sandwich is taller than it is wide, defying the most wide-open jaw. Ingredient choices for double-deckers range from bacon and egg to hot ham and cheese, turkey, beef, and bacon, all generally piled in with lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard, pickle, etc. We are especially fond of hot ham, which is sliced thin and loaded into the bread in moist clumps, and generally paired with American cheese.
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| Heroes' Hero
Throughout the mid-Atlantic states, no self-respecting hoagie shop is without a wall of fame where pictures of famous clientele gaze down on sandwich-eaters. Several years ago, at a Philadelphia eatery called Ragozzino's, we spent an afternoon studying the sandwich makers' art and came up with the following blueprint for the archetypal hero sandwich.
Of course, the ingredients can vary, but the roster listed here are what many sandwich menus refer to as the "Italian classic." More important than the specific list of cold cuts and/or cheeses included is the bread itself. Bread makes or breaks a hero sandwich. Spongy cotton loaves cannot be redeemed by the finest capicola and Provolone. You want a fresh, crisp-crusted, brawny-crumb, full-flavored torpedo that is sturdy enough to contain a double-dose of oil and vinegar condiments.
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| Local Hero
Before K.C. Scott opened up Magnolia's in April, 1999, it took a long while to come up with the right name. Then one day, standing in her kitchen, she found herself looking at one of the antique signs she had collected … for Magnolia Dairy Products. "I like Magnolia because it has a slow, Southern feel," she explains, noting that her goal in starting this seductive little restaurant was to create a place that provided quality food at a reasonable price in a setting that was as relaxed as a friend's kitchen. Her "Local Hero" sandwich, named for a movie she likes, is made on Magnolia's focaccia and dressed with Magnolia's vinaigrette, but if you are not quite that industrious, these ingredients can be store-bought.
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| Macaroni and Cheese
The South is not unique in its love for macaroni and cheese, one of the true all-American comfort foods. At the Blue Willow Inn, it is one of the few items served every day, every meal.
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| Meaty Chili and Cheddar Sandwich
Clementine is a neighborhood bakery-cafe in the Westwood/Century City part of Los Angeles that celebrates Grilled Cheese Month (April) with a festival that features a different grilled cheese sandwich every day. Chef Annie Milar's favorite is meaty chili and cheddar, variations of which sometimes include a hot dog and go by the name of Coney Island Grilled Cheese. She describes the sandwich as "gooey, sloppy, and delicious." She also noted, "This recipe makes enough chili for about 6 sandwiches, so that is what I have made the rest of the recipe for, but you could make fewer sandwiches and just freeze the leftover chili for future use."
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| Monte Cristo
The Monte Cristo sandwich arrived in America from France considerably some time in the 1930s. Most historians agree that it was based on the croque monsieur, a French sandwich made of Gruyere cheese and ham and fried in butter. It first appeared on menus and in cookbooks as the "French sandwich," and it is believed that it got its name, Monte Cristo, some time in the 1960s in Southern California.
This recipe is from Bakers Cafe, in Charleston.
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| Muffaletta
The name "muffaletta" once referred only to the bread, a chewy round loaf turned out by Italian bakeries. New Orleans grocery stores that sold the bread got the fine idea to slice it horizontally and stuff it, and the muffuletta sandwich was born. It has become a signature dish of The Big Easy, but, like the po boy, has become known nationwide. It depends on good bread and cold cuts, but the soul of a muffaletta is its olive salad. This is the recipe used at the wonderful All-Star Sandwich Bar in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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| Real Italian Sandwich
Colucci's Hilltop Market makes two kinds of Italian sandwich: a "real Italian," which means salami and provolone topped with tomato and green pepper, pickles, onions, olives, and oil; and a regular Italian, which features ham and American cheese. The big issue among Portlanders is not so much lunch meat or seasoning, but bread. Unlike hero sandwiches of the Mid-Atlantic states, Portland's Italians are made on soft white loaves similar to the kind of bun that traditionally encloses a lobster roll … but about four times the size.
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| Steamed Cheese for a Hamburger (or for Apple Pie)
Our friend Brian O'Rourke of O'Rourke's Diner in Middletown, Connecticut, has an old-fashioned steam cabinet for making steamed cheeseburgers or, equally wonderful, steamed cheddar cheese that is soft and smooth and eminently suitable for gooping on top of a wedge of apple pie. Brian told us that we didn't really need to buy a steam cabinet to get the same results. He said that all we needed was a large skillet, a metal colander with feet, a big heat-proof bowl and a clean, empty 6-1/2 ounce tuna can.
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| Sweet Italian Cheese Platter
For those with a serious sweet tooth who aren’t interested in frilly cakes and puddings, Harry Caray's of Chicago offers a platter of cheeses adorned with booze-infused fruits and sugar-toasted nuts.
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| Tostada Grande de Tucson
Also known as Mexican pizza or cheese crisp, the tostada grande is a staple of the Sonoran cooking so prevalent in Tucson. This recipe, from the venerable El Charro, is very basic and easy to eat without spillage; but it is common to add cebolitas (grilled green onions) on top. You might also consider salsa, grilled vegetables or shredded beef -- all of which make it pretty messy.
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