🥪 Crisp sandwiches

Serious sandwich 14

Hello Sandwich Fans! It’s Thursday, which means it’s time to channel some BIG SANDWICH ENERGY. The newsletter for paid subs drops on Friday morning. All paid subscribers have access to the full archive of paywalled articles as well as The Sandwich Board.

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The crisp sandwich - shot by Patricia Niven for Serious Sandwiches

We’d feel silly telling you how to put crisps in a sandwich. Most of us began doing this as children, surely, continuing the practice throughout the golden age of Meal Deals and then simply accepting it as standard into adulthood. A few salt and vinegar crisps slipped into a ham and cheese, a fistful of cheese and onion pressed onto a ploughman’s. Cruuuunch! But the crisps are a filling in their own right, too, on soft white bread with plenty of salted butter. Salt is an important theme. Ultimately, the crisp sandwich is a victory in three Cs: convenience, contrast, and crunch.

Whatever you can get your hands on, as long as it’s soft. This isn’t the time for overthinking. Bagged white will work perfectly, as will some virgin slices of the Perfect White Loaf from Rebecca at Toad Bakery. When choosing the bread keep one word in mind: fluff. Avoid sourdough unless the crisps are merely a garnish: the chewy texture will compete with that all-important cronch. Think of the bread as a cloud-like chaise upon which the salty snacks shall recline.

Duh. There should also be a thick layer of butter.

We ummed and ahhed about how to do this, but ultimately felt ridiculous attempting to provide recipes. The crisp sandwich is more a state of mind, a meditation. This is what makes it so perfect for this time of year, our brains lobotomised from lack of engagement. Take some crisps, put them in a sandwich and scuttle back to Netflix.

Here are some ideas:

• Potato salad and salt and vinegar or cheese and onion crisps. Really excellent, this one, requiring the kind of mayo-heavy potato salad found in supermarkets. If you can find one of the Eastern European ones - with the potatoes diced very small - all the better.

• Scampi Fries with taramasalata. Strictly LEGENDS ONLY.

• Salt and vinegar crisps with taramasalata.

• Prawn mayo with prawn cocktail. A classic for a reason.

• Tuna mayo or tuna melt with cheese and onion crisps. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

• Smoky bacon in a BLT. Smoky bacon in a club sandwich would also work well - maybe in the crabby club.

• In her piece on crisp sandwiches for Pit magazine’s Potato Issue, food writer Melissa Thompson suggests combining steak and cheese and onion flavour crisps for ‘a pie flavour’.

• We are intrigued by the idea of ham Torres with unsalted butter but, at the same time, disgusted with ourselves for even thinking of putting a bougie crisp in a sandwich.