Chicken Club Sandwich

Sandwiches are the easiest snack. fast, comforting, and satisfying.

Ever since I was old enough to order Champagne, the combination of a club sandwich and a great, slightly old, yeasty Champagne has been the perfect palliative for many trying moments. If I had just arrived in a hotel, too tired or late to go out for dinner, it’s the right thing.  If I’ve been out to dinner in a strange city, and the food was bad, all I had to do was return to the hotel and call room service.

Unforgettable are the out-all-nights in Hong Kong when I was researching the re-opening of its famous and famously run-down Peak Café. With the sun is rising over the harbor in front of my balcony, with yet another business lunch to be followed by a heavy dinner, I felt safe knowing that when I finally made it back to the Mandarin Hotel, I could rely on its world-perfect twenty-four-hour room service with the BLT and the chicken club on the menu.

They are the night owls and the too-tired-to-go-to-dinner companion. The apotheosis of twenty-four-hour room service, especially when both are combined into one, and the sun is coming up.

Serves 2

6 slices                   Bacon or pancetta

4 slices                   Artisanal white bread

2 tablespoons        Unsalted butter

 1/2 cup                  Mayonnaise

1                            whole chicken breast, poached, skinned & shredded

1 tablespoon          olive oil

4 pieces                  Greenleaf or curly leaf red lettuce, washed, dried

6 slices                   Ripe tomato, cut 1/4 inch thick

Sea or kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Lay the bacon or pancetta out in flat strips and broil or bake in the oven until crisp.

Grill, broil, or toast the bread until just golden.

Meanwhile, add olive oil, and a generous pinch of kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to the shredded chicken. Stir well to combine.

Once toasted, immediately butter the bread then spread the slices liberally with mayonnaise.

Put the lettuce down first, then the shredded chicken, then tomato slices, the bacon, and then the remaining bread.

Cut each sandwich in half and serve with potato chips.