Fitz’s Sandwich (Binging with Babish) | Recipe

Another edition of One Recipe a Week is here, this time, with a cookbook that tiles into movies and TV shows. Binging with Babish is a Youtube channel that we actually watch weekly, enjoying all of the food that Andrew Rea creates each week. The theme of Binging with Babish is taking recipes and foods from TV shows or movies and recreating them to the best of his ability, before making a more edible version is some cases. The cookbook by the same name showcases the shows first 100 recipes, all put together in a beautiful book full of amazing photos, small verdicts, and easy to follow recipes.

Fitz’s Sandwich, picked by the entire family, was inspired by Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and took quite some time to make. You actually have to start this recipe the day before to get a very flavorful and good ciabatta loaf, so do plan ahead when making what, at first, just looks like a big, tasty sandwich.

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Fitz’s Sandwich

Course: lunch

Cuisine: American

Keyword: sandwich

Ingredients

Ciabatta

• 3/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast
• 1 & 1/4 cups Water Room-Temperature
• 15 oz All-Purpose Flour Plus Extra for Dusting
• 1 & 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/4 cup Milk Room-Temperature
• Vegetable Oil

Pesto Aioli

• 1/4 cup Pine Nuts Toasted & Cooled
• 1 cup Fresh Basil Packed
• 4 Garlic Cloves One left whole, 3 grated
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup Olive Oil Plus More for Drizzling
• 1 Large Egg Yolk
• Salt & Pepper

Sandwich Filling

• 1 pound Thinly Sliced Prosciutto
• 2 6-oz Balls of Buffalo Mozzarella Sliced
• 1 Beefsteak Tomato Sliced
• 4 oz Baby Arugula

Instructions

Ciabatta

• Add 1/4 teaspoon yeast, 3/4 cup water and 5 oz of flour into a small bowl.
• Stir until a sticky paste forms then scrape down the sides of the bowl.
• Cover with plastic wrap and let ferment at room temperature for 8 to 24 hours – the longer the better.
• After time has passed, add this starter to a stand mixer with a paddle attachment*
• Add in the rest of the flour (10 oz), yeast (1/2 teaspoon) and water (3/4 cup) as well as the salt and milk
• Mix for 1 to 2 minutes on medium speed, until everything is well combined.
• Knead the dough, either by hand or in the mixer with the dough hook attachment, for 10 minutes. The dough should become shiny and smooth.
• Place the dough into a large, oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap for 30 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
• Oil a rubber spatula and use it to fold the dough onto itself, eight times, rotating the bowl so that every part of the dough then gets folded onto itself.
• Wrap the dough back up and let it sit for 30 more minutes. Repeat the previous step and this one two more times.
• Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees F (and if you have one, place a pizza stone in the center rack to pre-heat).
• Dump the dough out onto a well floured surface and divide it into 3 equal parts, roughly shaped into 9 by 12 inch rectangles.
• Fold one dough rectangle in thirds lengthwise to create a 3 by 12 inch loaf. Repeat with the other loafs.
• Place them, seam-side down on a sheet of parchment paper, cut just larger then the size of the individual loafs.
• Sprinkle a bit of flour onto each loaf, cover them with plastic wrap and let them rest for another 20 minutes.
• Remove the plastic and spray the loaves with water from a spray bottle.
• Place the loafs into the oven, on their parchment paper, and bake for 22 to 30 minutes until they are golden brown on the outside and have an internal temperature of 210 degrees F.
• Cool on a wired rack.

Pesto Aioli

• Into a food processor, combine pine nuts, basil, whole garlic clove and 3 tablespoons of olive oil.
• Process until it becomes a smooth sauce, add more oil if necessary.
• In a medium bowl, add egg yolk and grated garlic.
• Whisk in, vigorously and without stopping, a stream of 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the olive owl, slowly, while pouring the oil down the side of the bowl. Keep whisking until a think aioli forms.
• Whisk in the pesto from the food processor and add salt and pepper as needed.

Sandwich

• Slice the ciabatta loaves in half, length wise, and then fill with your ingredients. Spread your pesto aioli on the top halves of the sandwich.

Notes

*We do not have a stand mixer and did all of this by hand, by kneading and mixing, which worked out fine but was more labour-intensive. 

We stuck as close as we could when it came to building the sandwich, though we switched out Prosciutto with crispy bacon and Baby Arugula with butterleaf lettuce due to what was available in our shops. The bread and pesto aioli were the real stars in these sandwiches for us. The aioli was delicious, super fresh and garlic-y. You don’t need a whole lot of it to really bring a sandwich to life. The bread took a long time to make and was very delicious. I do feel that you must really want to make bread to make a bread that takes this much effort. As we aren’t big bread eaters, we weren’t sure if it was completely worth it, however Dann has mentioned going to purchase the ‘bread we had with the big sandwich’ a few times and has been reminded that it was homemade bread, so I guess that’s pretty good! Dann has also become the sauce king, mastering the art of sauce and enjoying the process.

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