SAMMICH!

This is an arts blog, right? Well, people seem to forget the fact that cooking is a highly, highly interesting and delicious art. When I'm hungry enough and there's nothing microwave ready (and sometimes when there is and I feel compelled to eat something different), I am known for thinking of stuff to put together that might taste good. Now, I don't claim to be any sort of great experimenter with food, in fact some might call me somewhat conservative, but I can come up with some epic stuff every now and then. I'm also infamous for, when I'm not baking and it's highly important to do so, not measuring. I even have a dish I call my "Secret Crap", because what exactly is in it is a secret, even to me. And it's different every time. I just grab things that sound good together, chop it up, throw it in the wok with everything else. I usually like it, others I get a 50/50 reaction out of.
So today, I got home and felt like a sandwich. Not a cold one with sliced meats and mayonnaise and cheese and all that, but a hot or at least warm one with toasted bread... and chicken. Mmmmm, chicken. And how about some asianiness to it? Mmmmm, asian (don't try and construe more from that comment then you ought to...). So here's what I came up with, it's possible resemblance to some other sandwich out there is purely coincidental.

• 1 thawed and flattened small chicken breast
• Mr. Yoshida's® Original Gourmet Sweet and Savory Sauce and Marinade
• 1 carrot, sliced long (or grated into long slices, if you have one of those wide holed graters)
• 1 thin slice of white onion
• Mozarella or Provolone cheese (I intended to use provolone but there was none in the house)
• 2 slices of bread of your choice
• Iceberg Lettuce (or a lettuce of your choice)

Once the chicken boob is thawed, get a pan on medium heat and put in equal amounts of water and Mr. Yoshida's sauce (enough to cover the bottom and the chicken will be mostly submerged). While that's heating up, get a food mallet/tenderizer and pound the boob flat (not enough to fall into pieces, but enough that in a sandwich you won't be hard pressed to fit it in your mouth). If you've never pounded one down before, get either some wax paper or some saran wrap and loosely fold up the meat in it. That will minimize any chicken juice splatter. Once that's done, put it on the pan and swirl it around to get plenty of sauce on it, and let it go. While that's cooking, slice/grate your carrot and onion, and cheese if necessary. The chicken should be done fairly fast, since you've thinned it out. Make sure and turn it a few times anyway (because under cooked chicken is bad chicken). Chuck your bread in the toaster to desired toasting level. Once they're toasted, take a spoon and get a little bit of the sauce from the pan, put it on both slices of bread enough that it'll have some extra flavor but not sopping wet, undoing any toasting you did. On one side layout your cheese and the carrot slices to desired thickness/population. Get your chicken out of the pan, put it on the bed of carrots. Put the onion slice and the lettuce on top of the chicken, top with other piece of bread. If there isn't enough asian-ness for your tastes, get a little sauce cup and get some of the left over sauce in the pan and use it for dipping (that's what I did at least). Then roll out and enjoy.

I'm sure one can come up with many variations according to their taste, especially with more exotic ingradients that I didn't have at my disposal, but that's what I had this afternoon and was very happy with it. Try it out, nom away, comments welcome.