If you’re planning a picnic and want to pack sandwiches to feed a crowd, make muffuletta. It’s one very large and tasty sandwich that you cut into portions.
The sandwich was first invented for practical purposes.
Although the name muffuletta is Italian in spirit, the New Orleans Historical website neworleanshistorical.org notes that muffaletta is actually one of New Orleans’ iconic dishes.
That website says the sandwich was created by Sicilian immigrants who arrived to New Orleans from Palermo in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The immigrants brought their culinary traditions with them, which included baking loaves of a traditional Sicilian bread called “muffuletto.”
Bakers making those loaves sold them on the street and wholesaled them to grocers. The latter included New Orleans’ famed Central Grocery, credited as being the place where the first muffaletta sandwich was made in 1906.
Lore suggests that farmers would stop into the store, owned by Salvatore Lupo, at lunchtime and buy a loaf of muffuletto, sliced cold cuts, olives and cheese. They would then eat while standing up, or with the food balanced on their laps.
Lupo noticed the farmers struggling to eat that way and came up with the idea of combining the ingredients into a large sandwich that was cut into portions.
New Orleans Historical says that sandwich, which eventually became known as muffuletta, was made on a large round of sesame-seed-topped bread that was split and layered with olive salad, genoa salami, ham, mortadella, provolone and Swiss cheese. Today, what goes into muffuletta can vary, but every version I’ve read about or seen has good bread stuffed with an olive mixture, Italian-style deli meats and cheese.
The sandwich, once made, is also often weighted down with something and allowed to sit a while, which compacts the fillings and helps to flavour the bread, meat and cheese with the flavourful olive mixture.
My version of muffuletta yields eight portions. When I pack it for a picnic, I’ll take the whole loaf with me and cut and serve it at the picnic site.
Muffuletta
You’ll find the round bread required for this recipe at some stand-alone bakeries and supermarkets. Once filled, pressed and cut, it will yield eight tasty portions.
Preparation time: 30 minutes, plus chilling time
Cooking time: None
Makes: One stuffed loaf
For the olive salad
1/2 cup pimento-stuffed olives, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives, coarsely chopped
1 cup spicy pickled Italian vegetables, coarsely chopped, plus 2 Tbsp liquid from the jar
(see Note)
1 large roasted red pepper, coarsely chopped (see Note)
2 Tbsp capers, plus 2 tsp liquid from the jar
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 to 2 Tbsp red wine or balsamic vinegar
For the sandwich and to finish
1 large, round Italian-style bread (about eight to 10 inches wide) or other round loaf, such as boule or pain de campagne
150 grams thinly sliced provolone cheese
100 grams thinly sliced sweet soppressata or capicola
100 grams thinly proscuitto cotto ham or mortadella
100 grams thinly sliced genoa or other salami
150 grams thinly sliced mozzarella cheese
Combine the olive salad ingredients in a bowl, cover and set aside.
Cut the bread in half crosswise. Pull out some of the excess bread in each half loaf to make room for the filling. Save the bread you pulled out for another use, such as bread crumbs.
Spread and pack half the olive salad into the bottom half of bread. Spread and pack the remaining olive salad into the top half of the bread.
Set a slightly overlapping layer of the provolone cheese on top of the olive salad on the bottom half of the bread.
Top that cheese with layers of the soppressata (or capicola), proscuitto cotto ham (or mortadella) and salami. Now top those meats with a layer of the mozzarella cheese.
Carefully set on the top half of the bread. Set bread on a plate and cover with plastic wrap. Set something heavy on the bread, such as an inverted cast iron or other heavy skillet. Refrigerate the bread at least four hours, before cutting into wedges and serving.
Note: The jar of Italian-style pickled vegetables I used in this recipe was Mezzetta brand. It’s sold in the pickle aisle of some supermarkets. If you can’t find it, simply use another type of mixed pickled vegetables. Roasted red peppers are also sold in jars at most supermarkets.
Eric Akis is the author of eight cookbooks. His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
