ALL ABOUT MUFFELETTAS
Source of Recipe
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List of Ingredients
The Bread
The perfect po-boy is all about the bread. If you use good French bread, everything else tends to fall into place.
The Olive Salad
In New Orleans we order our sandwiches either "dressed" or with "nutinonit," meaning that they either have lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mayonnaise, or none of these things. One dresses a muffeletta, but not with the traditional po-boy fixings. A muff has Italian Olive Salad on it, in generous quantities, with lots of extra virgin olive oil drizzled over both salad and bread. Italian Olive Salad is a mixture of green olives, black olives, carrots, cauliflower, and herbs, all marinated in red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.
The Meats
Ham -- I would suppose that muffs in earlier days were made with Prosciutto or some other smoked ham,
Salami -- This is usually "hard" or Genoa salami, as good a quality as you can get.
Mortadella -- The premier sausage meat from the city of Bologna, mortadella is essential to the classic muff. It's important to realize, however, that mortadella is not the same as the bologna you buy in the grocery.
You'll need about 1/2 pound of each for a 12-inch muff loaf.
Cheese
Mozzarella and Provolone, and you'll need 1/4 pound each. Go with as good a quality as you can find/afford.
Assembly of the Loaf
Pre-heat your oven to 350o F. Slice the loaf into top and bottom halves, and heat them for 2-4 minutes in the oven. When the bread is warm and lightly toasted, you're ready to assemble the sandwich. Place the mozzarella on one side, the provolone on the other, and allow the heat of the bread to melt the cheese. Begin laying out the meat on the bottom half. There's no special order here. I usually do salami, then mortadella, and then ham. Spoon the olive salad onto the top half, being sure you drizzle a good bit of the olive oil from the salad onto the bread. (If the olive salad you purchase is light on liquid, add some of your own extra virgin olive oil to it, then dish that up.)
What happens next depends a great deal on who's making the sandwich. Some folks like their muff thoroughly heated, where others are content to simply put the two halves together and go from there. As mentioned in the introductory article, the big danger with heating the entire sandwich is the increase in oiliness. You're dealing with three meats that will get greasy when heated, and you've already heaped a good bit of olive oil onto the bread. Heating those meats up will increase the grease content, but if you like a hot sandwich, so be it. I prefer to use meats that are at room temperature rather than straight out of the 'fridge, and let the heat from the bread do the rest. Of course, if you want a cold (non-heated) muff, there's no controversy -- ust put the thing together and go for it. When everything is assembled, cut into slices and serve.
Recipe
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