The Recipe with Kenji and Deb - BLT

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Deb: “This is the perfect sandwich.” Kenji: “This is my favorite sandwich of all time.” In fact, Kenji has gone way beyond just admiring and ingesting the Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato; as Isaac Newton captured the physical world with his laws of motion, Kenji has bestowed us with the 11 rules of the BLT. Deb has made her own significant contributions to the field of sandwich science, with the theory of seasonal variation of the summer BLT and "off-season" BLT.

Hi, it's me, Jesse Tyler Ferguson. In case you haven't heard, and I don't know how that's possible, you're obviously not seeing my Instagram stories, but I have a podcast. I know, I know, I know. I didn't think there was enough podcasts, especially podcasts hosted by actors. So here I am. It's called Dinners on Me, and it's actually pretty special to me. It combines two things that I absolutely love, eating and connecting with people. So in each episode, I take an old friend or a new friend out to a fabulous meal and as we break bread, we dive into everything from imposter syndrome and mental health to being a new parent navigating new relationships.

It's fun because you truly get to be a fly on the wall for some really intimate conversations. So please pull up a chair, join us. You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. The BLT, first of all, is my favorite sandwich of all time. Favorite sandwich of all time. My favorite sandwich of all time. Favorite sandwich of all time. My favorite sandwich of all time. That is so interesting.

I know it doesn't rank as the most popular sandwich. I think that's because people forget about it outside tomato season, or at least they should forget about it outside tomato season. Inside tomato season, when you have your first one, you're like, I forgot that this is the perfect sandwich, which was my experience making BLTs yesterday for the first time the season. So I made BLTs for the first time today this morning I made your

grilled BLTs and I assume you made my BLT recipe. I did I made yours based on your serious eats from a few years ago your BLT manifesto and I feel like you have some very good points there I actually agree with most of them which is weird like are we not gonna have anything to discuss today? Like, what are we gonna do if we can't argue? From PRX's Radiotopia, this is the recipe with Kenji and Deb. Where we help you discover your own perfect recipes. Kenji is the author of The Food Lab and The Walk and a columnist for The New York Times. Deb is the author of The Food Lab and The Walk and a columnist for The

New York Times. Deb is the creator of Smitten Kitchen and the author of three best-selling cookbooks. We've both been professional recipe developers for nearly two decades and we've got the same basic goal to make recipes that work for you and make you excited to get in the kitchen. But we've got very different approaches and on this show we'll cook and talk about each other's recipes comparing notes to see what we can learn from each other. This week, we're talking about the BLT sandwich. That's next on the recipe, so stick around.

So I want to start with the question of what is a BLT to you? And I mean, so for me, a BLT is a tomato sandwich that's seasoned with bacon and mayo and like has a little bit of, it's a tomato sandwich with condiments on it essentially. And so, you know, the tomato for me is the star of the show. And so tomato season is essentially BLT season for me, you know, and an off season BLT

is just a completely different thing for me. And I know some people really love the bacon, you know, it's like people want like a giant pile of bacon on the sandwich and they're fine with sort of, you know, there's winter. I think David Chang is one of those guys who said he wants a crunchy winter tomato on his BLT and just like a big pile of crispy bacon.

But I don't know, how do you feel Deb? You know, I had never thought of it before, before I read your piece about how it's a tomato sandwich seasoned with bacon, but I love that. I'm a big fan of tomatoes on sandwiches. I always need either a slice of tomato or something pickily and bright. sandwich seasoned with bacon, but I love that. I'm a big fan of tomatoes on sandwiches. I always need either a slice of tomato or something pickly and bright.

Like I need something, otherwise I find most sandwiches too dry and heavy and kind of like thick. So when I read that, it kind of, something snapped into place for me and I realized that I don't like it when BLTs are like you're biting through six slices of bacon. I like it when you're biting through a nice couple layers of well-seasoned tomato with, yeah, the bacon is a crunchy, salty accent.

So I agree with you on that because I feel like as long as the bacon is correctly cooked and nicely salty, I don't need a ton of it to make the sandwich work. Although I would say that even with sort of dry bacon, if you like having like a dozen slices of bacon on there, you can compensate for that with enough mayo or like with juicy enough tomatoes. You know, like I've had sort of like deli style BLTs where, you know, the bacon comes out of a microwave

and the lettuce is like shredded iceberg, but the shredded iceberg has like enough mayo in it that it becomes like a mortar almost that holds a sandwich together, you know, and gets it, and the bacon kind of gets pushed into it. And I think that can kind of work in its own special kind of way. But it's very different from like a homemade BLT with really good tomatoes. I didn't grow up eating BLTs at all. I don't know, we weren't kosher or anything growing up, but like bacon was not a regular part of our meal

repertoire. But as an adult, I absolutely love them. They're so fun in tomato season. And I've always done it where I kind of make them assemble your own style where I put out the tomatoes and the toasted bread, lettuce and kind of let the assemble your own style where I put out the tomatoes and the toasted bread and the lettuce and kind of let the kids and everybody make their own. It's also fun when we've had people over on the patio, you know, so everyone can make their own sandwich. It's such an easy meal. How do you make sure that people don't overdo it on the bacon then?

I mean, you're just going to have to glare at them and make them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome if they do. So the reason the BLT became so popular was post-World War II, there was bacon available in supermarkets and then iceberg lettuce and, you know, and cold storage tomatoes became available. So tomatoes, lettuce and bacon became available year round. And that's why, you know, and sliced bread. And that's why BLTs became popular post-World War II.

And so they became popular specifically because they weren't a seasonal thing. And they were, they were a thing that was just available from the supermarket year round. And the theory about their origins, which which like most foods is not, you know, it's not exactly known, but sometime in the early 20th century. But the idea is that it was actually a club sandwich without without the main ingredient, you know, it was all the condiments of a club sandwich just stuck into its own sandwich, bacon, bacon, lettuce and tomato. They are the three favorite condiments for say a burger, right? And you just take them, you stick them together into one sandwich. It essentially is just

a condiment sandwich, right? Yeah. So Deb, how about we kind of get into the BLT, literally get into it, work our way into it from the outside in and just talk about each and every, because there's not a lot of ingredients in the BLT, right? Exactly. And all the ingredients are real important. I feel like when you're working with any kind of recipe, the fewer the ingredients, the

more important they are. So here all the elements matter a lot. So why don't we start on the outside? All right, so let's start with the bread. Classic is like white sandwich bread designed for long shelf life, to stay soft, not to grow mold. So I am team white sandwich bread, although it has to be slightly hardier

than say like a Wonder Bread. It can't be the kind of bread if you put it into the grocery bag the wrong way, it comes home like completely flattened, you know? That kind of bread, it has to be bread that can hold its shape under a little bit of pressure like an Oroweed or like an Arnold, you know? Or even like Pepperidge Farms,

like something that's a little bit hardier than like your standard butter top or your Wonder Bread. When I did your recipe, your grilled BLT recipe, for that one, I knew I was going up in the grill and that, you know, sliced sandwich bread tends to be sort of high in sugar and burns really quickly. So for that one, rather than risking burning it on the grill, I did some sliced sourdough. It wasn't like, you know, like a country rustic,

huge hole, high hydration, really crusty sourdough, but it was just like a supermarket sliced sourdough, you know, so it was sort of relatively still dense whole structure that held up pretty well. But I think that's important, you know, bread with a sort of, you know, like more spongy whole structure as opposed to like a really open whole structure. I really like a good quality white bread. Like if there's a couple bakeries here where I can get a nice white sandwich loaf

and it's like I want it to be freshly made. But what I really don't want it to have is like that big thick crust of a sourdough or if a bakery bread Because I feel like that gets way too aggressive and I'll just like end up like ripping it off While I'm eating the sandwich which I do not want but um, yes there's a couple places here I can get a really good sandwich loaf and I will definitely make the effort of picking it up because In general if I'm gonna eat bread, I want to eat good bread I mean for me the ideal is choco pun like Japanese white milk bread. That's pretty soft isn't it? Well it depends what baker you get it from but it tends to be more firm than no a lot more firm than like a Wonder Bread or any kind of supermarket loaf. Okay maybe

I was thinking of milk bread that's what I was thinking. But it's not like you know it's not soft like say brioche it's soft. But the other thing is that because you're going to toast it you can use one of those softer breads and it'll hold up better. If you don't toast it you kind of have the nightmare that you have with my lunch sandwich today where I was out of bacon. So I put some ham on. I'd bought really good heirloom tomatoes yesterday at the market to make these sandwiches and I had some left.

So I wanted, I basically wanted a tomato sandwich with a salty accent, but I was in a rush and so I didn't toast the bread and it was, it got real wet. You mentioned toasting your bread. So one thing that I did when I made your recipe, which I don't think was written in there, is that when you're grilling bacon you lose a lot of the rendered bacon fat of course, right? It all drips kind of drips down into the grates. So when I make a BLT at home, like you made my recipe, you know, I like to take that bacon fat and use that to kind of toast the bread. You know, I like fry the bread in the bacon fat. I did that

last night. It was very good. What I did on the grill was I as I was cooking the bacon and it was kind of rendering, I would pick it up once in a while with the tongs and kind of just like instead of dabbing them on paper towels, I just like drain them on the bread slices nice so that when I went back and grilled the bread later, they had some of that bacon fat built into them. It's beautiful. I don't know if you'd consider adding it to your recipe, but I think it worked out. I think that makes a lot of sense. I like that I'm giving it like a little kiss of bacon drippings, especially charred. So I made your BLT that's on Serious Eats and I actually did the sheet pan method for the bacon

just because there's four of us and I didn't want to fry it all. I hate the stink of the frying. The sheet pan method is you lay out the bacon on a sheet pan and you bake it in the oven, right? And do you do two sheet pans where you put the bacon in between? Exactly.

And that keeps it flat. We'll get into that with the ingredients, right? And do you do two sheet pans where you put the bacon? Exactly. And that keeps it flat. We'll get into that with the ingredients, but the importance of having flat bacon so you can actually stack it on your sandwich. But I actually did it between two pieces of non-stick foil, which is like a great little thing that I have. And I did it between two sheet pans. Only thing is I'm glad I caught it at 15.

I think it called for 20 to 25 minutes. Maybe my bacon was thinner. At what temperature? Definitely 400. 400, okay. But mine was definitely done at like 15, 17 minutes. But it was great. And then I just had all of that bacon fat there. So I just used a brush and I brushed it on each piece

of bread and then I used a big griddle just to fry the bread. Like you fried it like over the stove top as opposed to toasting the bread. I was thinking about putting it back in the oven with the bacon grease, but I was like enough. It's just gonna smoke like crazy. So I just, I have a griddle thing

that I can put over two burners and I did that. Yeah, I find for a grilled cheese or for a BLT or anytime like you're gonna make a sandwich, like actually going that extra step and frying the bread on the stove, like in a pan or on a griddle, as opposed to just buttering it and toasting it makes a big difference because the toaster,

no matter how good your toaster is, it tends to dry it makes a big difference. Because the toaster, no matter how good your toaster is, it tends to dry it out a lot more than when you fry bread. You get a kind of moist crunch as opposed to kind of the drier crunch that you get from a toaster, which I think is really important for if you want if you want sort of the best sandwich experience, like getting that nice, moist crunch. Also, that fried edge has a lot of flavor oil like that's carry flavor. And so it just tastes you get you get more fragrance out of the the bread and it's really nice. I like the little extra crunchy lip

that you get around when you fry your bread. Yeah it's why toast at a diner is so good usually because they they put clarified butter on a griddle and they just fry the bread in the grill. Yeah they just fry it. Sometimes they've got those like little conveyor belt dudes but they still brush it with the clarified butter at the end. I know't know about clarified butter at any diners. I'd go to New York City, but I hope to find one because it sounds good to me. Either that or it's like the golden butter flavored liquid shortening stuff that they use. So we're both anti like whole wheat bread, rye bread, grainy bread.

I also have a pet peeve because I feel like whole wheat sandwich bread from a grocery store is, oh, it always tastes so sweet to me. There's a lot of added sugar almost more than there sometimes is in the white bread and I feel like that throws it so much. I do not want a sweet bread with my BLT. I want like the salt and the juiciness to come through. So that's the outside. Fried, toasted or I grilled it. I love to grill bacon since I'm grilling it anyway. I might as well just throw the bread on. You have to watch it very carefully, obviously, especially if you have a grill bus.

But I love that little charred, uneven edge on toast. So for me, grilled bread is one of my favorites. I worked really hard when I made my sandwich to get a nice, real even toast on my grilled bread. I watch it like a hawk. I'm always peeking with tongs, but reality is like some of it's gonna get a little darker, but I love that unevenness. I think it tastes really good. I also love, like if I'm always peeking with tongs, but reality is like some of it's gonna get a little darker, but I love that unevenness.

I think it tastes really good. I also love like if I'm doing grilled vegetables in the summer, I love doing like a grill sourdough bread that's rubbed with like olive oil and garlic, that kind of thing. So I love that. I don't know, I just like the rougher outdoor taste of grilled bread over toasted bread.

Or if you've got like a seafood boil or like a clam boil going and you're grilling bread, like buttered or olive oil bread on the side to dip into the broth. I'm so hungry now. Anyhow, let's get back to BLT's. So the other thing that is difficult to grill is the bacon itself, but we'll get to the insides of the sandwich, the bacon, where we're talking today about BLTs. You might have some background noise because I live in New York City on a very loud street.

Where they send all the ambulances to test their sirens. The Blue Angels are flying overhead today, like every 10 minutes. So it's cool to see. I had to send my son, my toddler to school with noise canceling headphones today because he gets really scared. So all the kids are walking around with headphones like strapped to their necks that they can pop on their heads every time the blue angels go overhead. So let's get back to the BLT. We talked about the bread. We talked about the outside. We want to work our way in.

So the mayo layer. It's got to be mayo. For me, it's got to be Hellman's. That's the mayo I grew up with. My theory on mayo is that it's kind of like a homing device and the mayo that you grew up with is the mayo that tastes correct to you. So pretty much if you grew up in Hellman's, you're not going to be asking for Duke or something else. That's just my theory. So for me, Hellman's tastes correct.

That said, I also really like Kewpie mayo and I keep it around. How about you? My mom's Japanese and my dad's American. So we grew up with both Hellman's and Kewpie in our fridge. So I used them both for different uses. But the Kewpie that you get now tastes a little different from the Kewpie of my youth, I think. I think that the stuff especially that you get like at Costco,

it tastes a little bit different. How does it taste different? It's thickened in a different way. Maybe it's not quite as tangy or sweet. I'm not really sure, but it tastes a little bit different. But anyhow, I used Kewpie on my sandwich because that's what I have Currently your recipe you called for mixing the kyu-pi with a little of sriracha. I love it. I love it Yeah, it's not traditional. But once I started doing it that way, I don't like it without it

I really like just a little bit of heat a little bit of heat I think is actually a really nice a nice little a little bit heat a little bit of extra city It's actually pretty nice touch You could put some hot sauce in it too, or you could even put some red pepper flakes on your tomato along with the salt. You know, to be honest, when I read it in your recipe, I kind of scoffed a little bit like, what is this? What is this extra ingredient? We're going to discuss this on my podcast.

This is a BLT, not a BLT plus Sriracha. Like it's a BLTS. Listen, I was writing for Bon Appetit in 2019. Of course I was going to put Sriracha. But I love it. I still do it. I like Hellmann's or QP. I like plenty of it. After that, this is where we get into trouble because in your recipe, you stack the BLTs with the lettuce and the bacon against the bread and the tomato in the middle. Did I? Yes, you put the tomato in the middle. And to me, any other order is better.

Anything but your way. Anything except that one way, because I think it's essential, I think it's essential to have direct tomato to mayo contact. Sort of the tomato jelly. I like when the tomato jelly kind of mixes with the mayo. When the mayo, what are you whispering under your breath? I don't know how I feel about the term tomato jelly. The tomato guts, the goop, the boogers.

Juices, juices. But not really juices because they're kind of jelly juices. I just feel like they're just watery messes. Maybe your tomatoes are wetter than mine. But I like when that mixes with the mayo and I like how the mayo also helps the tomato keep from sliding around. Like with the mayo, with the tomato in the middle, everything kind of slides around past each other, you know, and the lettuce slips on the mayo.

Classic summer sandwich is a tomato mayo sandwich. Like that's the classic tomato season sandwich. I feel like you've got to, and that taste comes from that interaction. So I do not stand by my whatever it said in 2019. I definitely do the tomato first. Or maybe I put lettuce directly on and then I put tomato, but either way it's one or the other. Mostly because I'm afraid of getting the bread

too soggy too fast. Yeah, so I think shreddis works when it's direct, yeah. Regular lettuce is a little more difficult because it slides around. So I would put lettuce in the middle, tomato and bacon on the outside. I feel like in the pictures on the Serious Eats, it showed mayo and then shreddis on top of it like in the pictures on the Serious Eats, it showed mayo and

then shreddis on top of it made on top of the shreddis. Shreddis works. Shreddis is an exception. Shreddis is not the same as regular lettuce. I have a question about mayo before we move on. Is it a BLT if it doesn't have mayo? No. I mean it is, but it's a bad BLT. It's not one I want to eat. None of this like no thin slice of avocado or that would probably be the closest I could find to something that would be acceptable if there wasn't mayo. But it's like, it's like making out on a sandy beach. You know, it's, it's not something you want. Oh yes.

That sounds terrible. Awful. So, okay. So we've gotten through the M which is funny because it's not actually one of the three letters of the BLT. I guess we have to get to the B next. Let's just go letter order. All right. So bacon. Well, we talked about grilling it, which I do

in part to keep the greasy stink from inside my small apartment. And also because I love the charred edge of it. I feel like when you grill bacon, and again, you have to watch it carefully and it is a little stressful with flare ups. I have a really wimpy grill, so it hasn't been a huge issue for me, but I understand if I had like a big green egg, I might notice it more. You have to be extremely careful. Yeah.

Yeah. Because bacon tends to like fall down and flare up. I built a two level fire, so I had like one half of the grill completely empty. So that as it flared up, I could flip it over to the non-flurry side so that it wouldn't burn. But I was like, he still has his eyebrows, so I didn't cause too much damage. I love the flavor of grilled bacon. You got to keep an eye on it.

You have to watch it. When you fry bacon, often the center gets nice, but the edges can stay flabby, especially as it curls up. And I love with grilled bacon that the edges get the darkest. Oh, well, this is why I use a chef's press or some kind of press to hold my bacon flat or in the oven between sheet trays to keep it flat. I did it this time too, and it was very nice. I don't mind having some of that contrast in there either.

What I don't like is when the bacon is undercooked to the point that when you bite into it in the sandwich you get like a snake unrendered bacon fat that pulls out of the sandwich. Yeah. Like you're pulling out like a fish cut. I want my bacon crisp enough that when you bite into it, it's not stronger than the bread or the tomato

or any other ingredient in there. I'm thinking of that with a super thick bacon. I think I sent you a clip yesterday from my second favorite podcast. Okay. Obviously ours is the first New Heights. They were talking about how they love bacon so much, but the thick bacon is like really difficult because it often gets too tough and it never gets properly crispy. And I was thinking that I agree. Thick bacon has to be cooked in a different way. I think you have to kind bacon has to be cooked in a different way. I think you have to kind of more singe it in a pan.

It doesn't, it really, it's not great for sandwiches. And also- I don't think so. You get so much less. Like if I'm eating a BLT, I think the thin slices of bacon are the way to go so you can kind of crackle through them. If you had a couple like lead in thick pieces,

it's not as enjoyable to eat. You in a BLT probably then don't mind something like just like your standard, like Costco bacon, you know, like you're, you're, I don't at all. Cause bacon is made in a bunch of different ways, right? So like a real traditional bacon will be a whole slab of pork belly. That's that will be smoked, you know, cold smoked, cured and cold smoked and then sliced, whereas the bacon that you're buying at the supermarket, it could either be brined in a sort of smoky solution

and not really smoked, or it could be injected to make the curing process faster, also to plump up the weight, but injected with also sort of a smoky solution. So your bacon could be anywhere ranging from like a super traditional naturally smoked version to what you would get at the supermarket, which is brined.

And none of those, it's not like one of those is, I'm not saying that any of those is like a bad bacon to buy, but typically like if I'm eating, if I want just like a slice of bacon, I want the sort of the fancier stuff, you know? But as a sandwich, I could see the sort of thinner, crispier, saltier stuff just kind of working, you know? It's funny, you're talking about like all these things

that sound really important and are like scientifically important and all I care about is the saltiness and the crisp. Right, right. Because I am so disappointed when I buy some fancy bacon from a fancy store or fancy butcher, and it's not salty enough. I'm like, no, you're here to provide the crunch

and the salt, you have two jobs. Could you imagine making a BLT? You have the heirloom tomatoes, you have the really good bread, you've got whatever your mayo of choice is, and then you have this unseasoned bacon. And I'm like, I am not eating bacon to go on a low-salt diet, thank you very much.

This is not the moment. Whatever you wanna say about like Hormel or Oscar Mayer or whatever, like they know how to, at least they've got their salt levels dialed in. They've got their seasoning dialed in. Whereas yeah, that's true, like sometimes with a, you know, an artisan producer, someone who's gonna be making bacon through a more natural process and starting

with more varied starting products, they're going to be, you know, probably not cutting them down to the exact same size that commercial bacon would be, not using the same sort of commercial equipment, and there's gonna be a lot more variation. And so yeah, sometimes you find that when you buy the fancy artisan bacon that the salt level can vary.

I had some great bacon today that someone brought to me, a chef from a restaurant called Skylark here in Seattle. He brought- You just have people bringing you bacon to your boat? To my book signing. I did a book signing and he brought it for me there because he just wanted me to try it out. The bacon was excellent. So this was an example of like a really great bacon. But I've also had bacons from great chefs even and great restaurants that sometimes have great bacon and then I buy them and I make

them at home and like they are just completely lacking in seasoning which is always a disappointment. So it ruins everything. So I did the sheet pan method yesterday when I made your BLT because I wanted you said if it's for multiple people it can be helpful to do it on a sheet pan and I found it really nice and hands-off. The sheet pan method was you call for two pieces of parchment paper but you basically just line a big sheet pan with parchment. I use nonstick foil, lay out the bacon, put a second sheet of parchment or nonstick foil on top, weight it down with a second sheet pan and then I roasted the oven

for at 400 for about 15 minutes. I would check it at 15, it might need 20 depending on the bacon. And it's really nice because it gets very crispy. You don't feel like you're greasing up your kitchen in the same way by frying and also it gets nice and flat and evenly crisp, which is key for a sandwich. Because if your bacon is too curly going on onto the sandwich, you can't fit as much on. Although I would say there is something kind of nice about when I go to a restaurant or diner and I get a BLT and you get those curly slices of bacon that have been cut through and and they make this and it makes a sandwich two inches tall just because the bacon is like a tangled nest at the bottom and then you get to kind of like squash it down before you bite it. Like I feel like that is also there there's an appealing factor in that.

Curly bacon where it still has some little pockets that are kind of like just slightly chewy. Like where there's like a little cup of bacon, you know? And just the way like a pepperoni cup, the bottom is a little chewy, but the edges are crispy. Sometimes you get little micro spots like that, localized spots like that in your bacon that I think work really well.

If the bacon is curly and even a little tight with the curls and it's crisp all the way through, it gets a little bit crumbly. No shards, you don't want shards of bacon. So I'm with you that like a little bit of soft pockets are okay. Are we talking too much about bacon? No, since we're both extolling our love

of super curly bacon, there was this place that we used to get breakfast a lot and the bacon was always super curly and tight. And I was like, all right, what bacon are you using? Is it Oscar Meyer? Is it Costco? Like, what do I need to get? And they said, we don't know what bacon it is,

but we deep fry it. Oh yeah, yeah, that's the best. I was shook. I was absolutely shook by it. Is that how you get it super curly? You just remove it from surfaces? Yeah, that's how you get it crispy all around and curly at the same time,

because you're heating it evenly, but you're not preventing it from coming up. But yeah, taking any shape at once. Yeah, I mean if you go into a restaurant and they have a deep fryer there and they're serving you crispy bacon, it probably came out of the deep fryer. It was so beautifully curly. It's also like the easiest way to cook a ton of bacon really fast. And then I was curious whether you render off more fat that way than you could even possibly absorb from the fryer. I know people are like horrified. I would guess that it actually comes out lower fat out of the deep fryer than it does from the oven. That would be my guess, or at least even. That's what I was thinking. And if anything you're swapping out some of the bacon fat for

some of the deep, you know, some of the fryer oil, which is probably, depending on what kind of oil you're using in there, it might be equivalent health-wise or better. So you're doing it for your cholesterol. No, it's good for your heart health. Why are we talking about the health of bacon here? Because, I know exactly. I feel like as soon as you're talking about making bacon healthier,

like you've sort of missed the point. Like the point is flying overhead because I just think I don't need bacon to be healthy. I'm okay with bacon being bacon. I don't eat it that often. And if I eat it, I want it to be really good. But yes, super curly bacon, probably deep fried. Good to know.

Probably deep fried. All right, so let's move on to the lettuce, huh? I am staunchly, as you should be no surprise, given that we've done an entire episode on iceberg lettuce and how much I love it and you love it. It's gotta be iceberg for me. There's no other lettuce. That's fair. I mean, I can it and you love it. It's gotta be iceberg for me. There's no other lettuce. Mm-hmm. That's fair.

I mean, I can see an argument for that. I definitely would include iceberg amongst the lettuces that I use on my BLTs. What else would you do? I think romaine works and- Wait, wait, do you take the rib out or do you leave the rib in on the sandwich? Rib in, I want the crunch.

But you kinda smush it down the way, you spatchcock it, you kinda crunch it down. Do you crack the spine? You crack the spine of the romaine, yeah. Or you can take a whole head and cut it into like steaks, you know, so that they're like, like shredded, but they're kind of... Okay, that I can respect, tasting lettuce. Yeah, I agree.

Iceberg has a sweetness to it that works really well in a BLT. But the BLT that I made, the grilled BLT, yours, I had some like baby romaine and red leaf that we picked from the garden. And so it was like, you know, it's like fresh and sweet and straight out of the garden. So I think that worked pretty well. I am with you that that iceberg in most circumstances is the lettuce of choice for a BLT. In fact, for like most club style sandwiches or most American sandwiches, the iceberg is the lettuce of choice. But I think a lot of times people's impression of whether a type of lettuce is good or not has to do with how hydrated it is.

I think a lot of times the romaine we get from grocery stores is kind of dehydrated and if you soak it in like an ice cold water, it gets really much more juicy. Like if you're at a restaurant and their ice and their romaine tastes better, that's why. So I was saying even the romaine at a grocery store is going to be a little dehydrated. If you soak it in ice water, when you come home, you'll find that it comes out a lot nicer. The same is true for iceberg.

Even though we already think of it as being very juicy and crisp. If you cut it, this is also a great way if you're very concerned about washing it. I would say I'm moderately concerned about washing it to begin with, but let's just say I was going to wash. This is how I wash iceberg.

I cut it into quarters or six, you know, like through the core, and then I do the same thing. I soak it in cold water, which both plumps and crisps it then. It's actually very easy to drain. You can just leave it on towels, but it really does make it more crisp and kind of hydrating of a bite and it really makes a nice difference. It's osmosis. So if you're thinking you don't like a certain kind of lettuce, you probably just

haven't soaked it in cold water for a while to see how it improves it. So I have a big salad spinner, you know, like one of those big green oxo salad spinners, and I fill that up with cold water. You know, if I'm making romaine, I'll, you know, I'll trim the bottom off and I'll separate it into leaves or I'm doing iceberg. I'll prep it however I'm going to prep it. Even if I'm like, if I'm making shreddice, I'll shred it and then put it into the water in the cold water in the salad spinner.

And then I let it soak in the salad spinner for like a good 15, 20 minutes. You can even pop it like in the fridge with that cold water in, you know, the lettuce soaking in the cold water, like overnight or whatever, and it's fine. And the next day you just pull out the insert, dump out the water and then spin it really dry. And your lettuce becomes much, much, much crunchier and juicier.

Yeah, there's a reason salad spinners exist. And they really do actually make a big difference in the quality of the texture of your lettuce in particular. Then we'll save my anti- anti salad spinner rant for another day. I understand their purpose. I just for me, they don't get the lettuce dry enough for the space they take up in my small kitchen, but that is another rant. Salad spinners get them dry in a way that is difficult to do

and using other methods, unless you're literally going to go out there and like, you know, on paper towels, dry and leaf by leaf. I throw it down on a big dish towel, like loosely roll it up. And then I give it a few shakes and then I just leave it in there until I'm ready to use the lettuce. Can we both agree that it's important

that your lettuce is wet on the inside and dry on the outside? I was thinking of that because you were talking about not using iceberg for your BLT, but you had some freshly plucked lettuce and it tasted good there. And I'm thinking it tastes good because it just came out of the ground. It hasn't gotten tastes good because it just came out of the ground it hasn't

Gotten even though it just came out of the ground. I also soaked it in ice water Ah, well, so it was doubly soaked, but I was thinking it was had a better chance of Tasting good than old grocery store lettuce. All right So the L is important. Wait Did I read that Ed Levine had suggested at some point that the BLT doesn't require lettuce at all that it's superfluous Have you heard this? Hey Siri, call Ed Levine. It's like call a friend. Hey Ed, you there?

Yeah, man. What's up? I'm here with Deb, your friend Deb. We were talking about BLTs here and she mentioned that you had a rather controversial take on one of the ingredients in a BLT. And we wanted to ask you about that. So what was the take Deb? I read that Ed Levine really suggested once that the BLT doesn't require lettuce at all and considers it superfluous. Ed, what do you have to say about the lettuce in the BLT being superfluous?

Well, you know, you and I have long argued about this too, because I know you really differ. I don't know where Deb comes out, but she did seem a little alarmed. Very alarmed. Here's the thing. The BLT should be on white toast. You got your crisp and your crunch there so the lettuce

doesn't really have a Roll that it's best suited for By a lot of flavor and so you have that you have your toast Ayo, you've got a perfect slice of a field riped tomato and then you have bacon that is more pliant than crisp. That is a perfect BLT. Wow. Wow.

Ed, you should have seen Deb's face when you just said pliant and bacon that's more pliant than crisp. Her eyes got as big as two large field ripe beefsteak tomatoes. Deb, you have to say about that. I think Ed is allowed to make his BLTs in any way that makes him happy. He's earned it. That's a very diplomatic response. I agree that Ed is allowed to make his BLTs in whatever way makes him happy,

even if it's just a BT. We're all part of the Ed Levine fan club. Okay, so even though I disagree with Ed, I think the lettuce is necessary and I love it there. I love a juicy, crisp element and I would never take it away. I would say of all the things you could remove from the sandwich, taking the lettuce out

would cause the least harm. Obviously taking the bacon, mayo, or tomato out would be unacceptable. I disagree as well. I taking the bacon may or tomato out would be unacceptable. I disagree as well. I think the lettuce adds not just crunch, but it also adds lightness. You know, it adds a little bit of like wet crunch, which is different from the fatty crunch of bacon.

Deb did say that of all the things that you can take out of a BLT, the lettuce is the first thing to go. Which I would agree with. Yeah, and here's the thing. If the K-pop band is BTS, that supports my hypothesis that it should be the BTS, the bacon tomato sandwich. Alright, let's say goodbye. Thanks so much for picking up, Ed.

We'll give you a call if we ever have a need for more controversial opinions. Alright, man. See you later. Bye. How would you feel if you went to like a fancy brunch spot and you ordered a BLT and it came to you with arugula on it? I love arugula so much on sandwiches, but no, it's not right.

It's not right. The tomato's too wet for the arugula. I love arugula on like, I love to do a sliced hard-boiled egg sandwich. There's so many things I like the spicy bite of arugula for, but this is not it. This is not the moment. Wrong lane, wrong time.

What do you think? Did that happen to you? Do you wanna talk about it? Arugula, I don't think belongs anywhere near any sandwich that has an ingredient that is either hot or maybe even an ingredient that has once been hot. Arugula is okay. Arugula is great, say you have some thinly sliced mortadella or something like that. Arugula is great on that. Or some really good mozzarella and arugula, that's really good. But I wouldn't want arugula on my

hamburger. I wouldn't want arugula on my eggs, like my fried egg sandwich. It's not a classic BLT, but in my last cookbook, Smitten Kitchen Keepers, I have a recipe for the Russian BLT. Okay. Which is a deeply not traditional BLT, but it was basically that I always am looking for excuses to talk about pickled iceberg lettuce, which again, not traditional, but as somebody who always wants either something juicy and crisp on my sandwich or a pickle, this is something that my mother-in-law makes.

It's really just like it's pickled with, it's a quick fridge pickle with some vinegar, water, a little garlic and some dill. But it is, I think it is a sandwich topper par excellence. Like it's so good. So I put it be something that'd be really good in like an Italian hoagie. Right? I absolutely agree. Pretty much any place. But I, so again, this is not a traditional BLT. It may not fit in the context of this, but I feel like I have to mention that I have a recipe for a BLT with pickled iceberg on it. And then the other way I make it is like so-called Russian is that I basically give the mayo a little Russian dressing twist,

which by the way, Russian dressing has literally nothing to do with Russian cuisine whatsoever. But we're obviously just having fun with it at that point. In every other way, it's a traditional BLT, but it was fun too. I loved that little pickly level. It's not like a deli sour kosher dill pickle level pickle, it's just-

And this is your mother's recipe? This is my mother-in-law. My husband's family is Russian and they pickle everything. Got it. I feel like you're allowed to make exceptions to tradition for in-laws, you know? Especially when they're good cooks, but the pickled iceberg is so good.

And they don't pickle it as a sandwich topper, but it's one of my favorite uses for it. So we both agree that the fresh tomato is the star. It's gotta be in season. That's why I think of a BLT as a summer or a late summer sandwich. Should the tomato be cut thick or thin? Thick.

Like how thick? Like, do you just want one slice of tomato per sandwich or two? No, I mean, I'd like to cut it open and see a stack of tomatoes and I want them to be multicolor. Like I want like a rainbow, you know, in there when I open it up. It's cut it open and see a stack of tomatoes. And I want them to be multicolored. Like I want like a rainbow in there when I open it up. It's tomato season.

I want, I want a lot of tomato. So yeah, I'd say, you know, between like a quarter to a half inch thick, leaning towards a half inch thick side and at least, at least two slices stacked in there, but more if it's a smaller tomato and you need to layer it, you know, but there needs to be like two layers of tomato. So you have the big circle slice. I like to cut it in half and then I try to put all the cut edges against the edges of the bread. Yeah, I feel like it's too unwieldy. Like you'll never get the tomato to the corner if you just use the round slices. Do I overthink things? I do the same

thing. I did that when I was a kid with my bologna sandwiches. So we both agree that it has to be a very good fresh tomato. It has to be the kind of tomato that like when you buy You know It's like I bike to the farmers market and when I get like a perfect tomato I get scared that it's going to squish on My bike right home So I have to bike like very carefully going or even if I'm driving I'm like very careful not to hit the potholes because the tomatoes and the plums are gonna squish What about when you have two of them and you want to put them in like separate bags so they don't?

Oh, yeah, to each other and switch into a sandwich bread? So right now we're getting excellent sort of cherry tomatoes and excellent sort of smaller tomatoes but like the big fat beef steaks are not quite ready yet. But I made mine with some of the smaller tomatoes. So at the peak of tomato season you want to get sort of the big fat juicy beef steaks for a sandwich like this. You know something that was picked that morning you know preferably from your own yard but like at least from the farmers market or for a sandwich like this. You know, something that was picked that morning, you know, preferably from your own yard, but like at least from the farmer's market or from a really good supermarket, something that was picked recently

that was fully ripened on the vine and then not shipped and ripened off the vine, which is what happens to sort of off season tomatoes. But if you can't get those tomatoes, generally what I find is that the smaller the tomato, the better the quality is going to be in the off season. And it's just because larger tomatoes, when they're allowed to ripenen fully on the vine they end up not being able to support their own weight they become too big for like their skins to hold them send their structure hold themselves up and so they have to be picked what is still green where smaller tomatoes they're allowed to ripen a little bit further along the line before they're picked so if you can't get those big fat beef steaks made. I use those clam shell Campari tomatoes, you know? Which are like- Oh, I love those.

Yeah. Yeah, those are like somewhere in between a cherry tomato and somewhere in between a beefsteak. You can slice them pretty thick. You can get like three or four thick slices for a sandwich out of them. And those are pretty decent year round. When you're at the grocery store,

do you open the clam shell of the Campari tomatoes and squeeze them before you buy them? Or is that just my psycho thing? No idea. I'm not, gently, I have trust issues. I can't just bring it home and then find out that it was waterlogged and mushy. You know, if I'm ever in like an episode of CSI,

they can go to the supermarket to get my fingerprints off of every single tomato and peach in there. So we made it to the BL and the T. Can we talk a little bit about sort of the best way to eat a BLT? I feel like a BLT of all the sandwiches, it's the one that's best eaten just standing over the kitchen counter. You get everyone and you just kind of hang out in the kitchen and eat it because a good BLT is really drippy.

Either that or at the diner counter. And it's time sensitive. Yeah, it's time sensitive because the bread gets soggy. You have to hurry up and eat it or the bread is going to lose its fight against the tomato. A little absorption is okay, but I do feel like we're like, come on guys, the BLTs are ready, let's go eat right away. So you either have to do what you suggested before, which is make a BLT bar. Love that idea. So that people assemble their sandwiches and eat them.

Or everyone has to be gathered around the kitchen and like you just hand people sandwiches and shove it in their faces and they lean over the cutting board to catch the drippings. But I think, you know, like I think no plates, just napkins, like leaning over a garbage can or a sink or a cutting board like a rat and just like, you know, shoving it in your face. That's how BLT should be eaten.

So we did a little of a make your own situation last night. So I had these sliced tomatoes that were really nicely seasoned. They were still on the cutting board all laid out with the salt and pepper on them. And then when we were done with the tomatoes, we realized that there was just like this beautiful puddle of fresh tomato juices that was salted and peppered.

So I had to go back to the kitchen and get another slice of bright bread for us to sop it up with. Did you add some olive oil in there? No, but it was very good regardless. It must've also had some like bacon, you know, like some bacon dripping. Maybe a little bit, but it was just like leftover.

And it just felt like a crime to leave such beautiful tomato juices. It's like an impromptu panzanella. A panzanella salad is a bread salad that's seasoned with a tomato vinaigrette. Absolutely. The tomato juices come out and they mix with the olive oil and that makes a vinaigrette that then soaks into the bread.

We did get to talking about sandwich cutting, I think in our grilled cheese episode, we made the internet happy because they love it when we argue over sandwich cutting and how wrong everybody but me is. I made your recipe and you insisted in this serious eats recipe that triangles taste better with a link to your t-shirts

that say triangles taste better. So I cut it in triangles. I don't feel it was better as a triangle. I didn't feel like it was worse as a triangle, but I just, I still don't agree. I don't like that sharp angle. I think it just, the shreddish just fell out. Wow.

It does. The goal of cutting a sandwich in half is to keep the contents inside. If you have a sharp angle, it's harder to keep it inside. The goal of cutting a sandwich in half is to make it easier to eat. No, it's the shortest way across. I think of it as like packaging,

packing it up to put in this kid's school lunch box. So it's the shortest way across. No, it's the shortest way across. I think of it as like packaging, packing it up to put in this kid's school lunch box. So it's the shortest way across. So you can keep the most stuff inside. I do that also, but the reason you should cut a sandwich into triangle is for ease of entry. It's so that you can shove as much sandwich into your mouth at once as possible. That's only true of the first bite. The rest of them are more obtuse. No, but you get, wait, wait, wait, but you get four, you get four of the first bite. The rest of them are more obtuse. No, but you get you wait, wait, wait, wait. But you get four. You get four of those first bites.

And then you've just got a blobby middle. If you plan your bites correctly, you can get some of those bites to then create new triangles that you get new points that you could bite into. OK, Mr. Geometry, I didn't take the compass and the protractor out to eat my sandwiches. Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong. I felt that the shredders fell out.

So I did cut it into triangles because I was directed to by Kenji, but I still felt that it wasn't better. I will say that you're starting to sway me a little bit, at least on dipping in tomato soup. When we did that episode, I could see why the pokey corner would be good for tomato soup.

But I feel like I am trying to keep the stuff inside the sandwich halves. And if those angles are too sharp, it just falls out. I had a lot of stuff left on the plate. I had to scoop it up. I asked friends what they consider, I said, give me all of your opinions on a BLT, what's your favorite kind?

And one friend was saying that she likes it with salmon and avocado. I'm like, that's not a BLT, that's a sandwich with bacon. And I'm surprised by the number of people that feel that. That is a good acronym though, a BL, that's a blast. Oh, that is fun. Bacon, lettuce, avocado, salmon, tomato. Maybe it's even delicious.

It's just fun, it's a blast. But it's not a BLT. I agree, it's not a BLT. It's not a BLT. I would say avocado probably comes up the most as like extra stuff that people like to add. A blat is the most common additional acronym. Eggs, a fried egg is also pretty common on there.

I don't want a hot egg against a cold tomato. I could see a hard boiled egg working, but like a fried egg, not really. Avocado for me works if it's like a really ripe avocado and you do it on the bread layer. So, you know, cause like, cause avocados are, they're kind of like nature's mayo, you know? And so like if you season it well, like you give it maybe a little squeeze of lemon juice and like nice and salty and you mash it up and you use it like almost in place of the mayo.

I could see that working. I would use it as a mayo replacement for sure. That's the only way I would like it. I wouldn't like. Maybe like right up against the mayo like with a little bit, but a little bit less mayo. That's one of my pet peeves with avocados and sandwiches is I only like it in a sandwich when there isn't cheese or something else creamy in it. Like I want it to be the creamy element, but that's just like a separate. That's a bonus opinion. Speaking of cheese, what do you think about

all the people suggesting putting cheese in your BLT? I don't want it. I mean, I love a mozzarella tomato sandwich. Actually, I wouldn't even mind that with arugula and like the balsamic thing too, but I don't need it at all with the BLT. But arugula and balsamic in a BLT, no. Somebody suggested pesto.

Listen, I'm not trying to yuck anyone's yum, but it feels very wrong to me. It's not the spirit of a BLT. We can go down a list of all these things you could add to your BLT. And frankly, like I think, you know, to me a BLT is like a culinary endpoint where it's gone through some kind of evolution and it feels like it's at this point where it's like you can make incremental differences in your improvements, maybe just by adjusting how you cook one ingredient or another.

But you're not going to make a fundamental difference to a BLT and that there's nothing you can do to a BLT that would make it better without sort of fundamentally changing its nature. Somebody said they like crispy shallots on their BLT. And I'm like, I'm a purist, but that does not really good. Yeah I like that when you serve BLT since it potato chips on the side of the plate. Yeah Yeah, I'm not like making french fries when I'm making like a BLT is like a you know, like a 10-minute or 15-minute No thinking summer thing. I'm not gonna LTA potato I'm not gonna do anything more than make it, then open a bag of potato chips. Maybe, yeah, if I have the grill, if you're grilling anyway. Court of the Cubs.

Maybe a salad, if I want to be fancy, I'll like, you know, chop up some rosemary and throw it on the potato chips or something, you know? That sounds completely unnecessary. It's good though. Can you waffle a BLT? Does it waffle? Oh, geez. No, you can't waffle a BLT. Does it waffle? Oh, geez. No, you can't waffle a BLT because you end up with hot lettuce and tomato, right?

Ugh. God, hot lettuce is the grossest thing in the world. Hot lettuce is my college band. Hot lettuce is my nickname. Could you BLT a taco? I feel like you could. It wouldn't be the same as white bread, but you could do it in a flour tortilla. Yeah.

Oh my God. You know, I just saw a great video, Alex Stupak and Payon. Oh yeah? The taqueria in New York, which is a fancy, expensive taqueria, but he was making a BLT taco, and so he had this like kind of super thick-cut bacon, I think they like slow cooked it and then grilled it.

It was in like a fresh tortilla, it looked really good. I feel like you need some pickled iceberg on that. Pickled iceberg on a BLT taco would be good. I don't stop, sorry. Can you fry a BLT in butter in a pan? I don't know, I mean, maybe the bread, but. Yeah, I don't think you'd want, you have bacon fat already, so let's say no.

If you're going to do that, you might as well use the bacon fat. So, to BLT's leftover, I would say not assembled, but I love it when we have extra bacon, because then you can make a BLT sandwich the next day. How do you reheat your bacon or do you just let it sit out at room temperature? I would probably be okay with it at room temperature. You can microwave it for 10 seconds. It's not perfect, but it'll be fine. It doesn't get chewy?

Not usually. If it doesn't start chewy, it doesn't usually get chewy. Like if it was crisp coming out of the pan, it's not gonna get uncrisp, I don't think. I don't want to do that like annoying thing where I'm like, what's leftover bacon? But I don't know that I've ever had leftover bacon. Sometimes I make extra for the express purpose of having leftover, like maybe for two days of breakfast or two days of something. I feel like it's worth it to have leftover bacon

in the summer because your lunch is made. You've got the tomato, you've got the ice cream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it becomes like a sandwich or a salad topping or in your soup or whatever. Can you get a BLT out of kids clothes easily and by kids? I can't even myself I think the proper way to eat a BLT is like hunched forward Anyway, that should never be an issue BLT should like all splat on the counter. Have you taught your kids the hunch?

They do it. Yeah, they do it. Okay I mean, you know the right way to eat a BLT they know the right way to eat pizza Okay, they got to have the lean. Yeah. They know how to slurp noodles. Well, I think that wraps up our episode of the recipe with Kenji and Deb. I had fun today. I had fun today.

Got airplanes overhead. We got to talk about bacon. We agreed on most things. Like what is happening? Maybe we can get more fights next week. I think it's that you and I agreed that everyone else is wrong. We found a common enemy and it was everybody but us.

Thank you for joining us. If you liked what you hear and you want to find out more about the show or if you have suggestions for upcoming episodes, you can visit us at therecipepodcast.com or follow us on Instagram at Kenji and Deb and shoot us a message. And we now have a phone number where you can call us. It's 202-709-7607 and you can leave us a voicemail.

The recipe is created and co-hosted by Deb Perlman and Jay Kenji Lopez-Alt. Our producers are Jocelyn Gonzalez, Perry Gregory, and Pedro Rafael Rosado of PRX Productions. Edwin Ochoa is the project manager. The executive producer for Radiotopia is Audrey Mardovich, and Yori Lissardo is the director

of network operations. Apu Gotay, Emmanuel Johnson, and Mike Russo handle our social media. See you next time on The Recipe with Deb and Kenji. The Recipe with Kenji and Deb is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, creator-owned, listener-supported podcasts. Discover audio with vision at radiotopia.fm.