The Mitraillette makes an encore appearance

You were recently introduced to something I can only refer to as a monstrosity of a sandwich that is known to the country of Belgium as a mitraillette.

Simply put, the mitraillette was great. How great you ask, well, you know how sometimes you eat something and keep thinking about it? Well, since I’m not going to Brussels anytime soon, I was left to re-create it on my own, but I wanted to change it up a bit.

Homemade mitraillette

So let’s review the basics, I needed to come up with the following to make this happen.

• Friends  – Thanks to Erin, Supriya, Cody (the dog) and Darwin (the cat) for allowing me to cook in their kitchen and eating this thing with me (well Cody and Darwin didn’t, although, I think Cody wanted to try) so I didn’t feel guilty eating a mitraillette by myself.
• Baguette – The baguette was easy, we chose whole wheat to lessen the guilt just a little bit.
• Meat – I had gone with the hamburger option in Brussels, but this time, we opted for an Italian spicy sausage.
• French fries – Without access to a deep fryer and not wanting to stand in front of a pot of boiling oil, we were all in agreement that some baked sweet potato fries would be perfect.
• Veggies – If nothing else, the veggies were a way to justify the eating of this sandwich. We went with caramelized onions.
• Some type of sauce – More on my somewhat failed attempt at cheese sauce below.

All the fixin's

Recipe/Instructions

Sweet Potatoes

• Wash four (4) sweet potatoes (awesome job on the washing Supriya!) and cut them into french fries form and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
• Lay them flat on a baking sheet and drizzle some olive oil over them and then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Bake for about 20 minutes and then turn them with a spatula and let bake for another 10-15 minutes. Toss a little salt over the fries when they come out of the oven.
• Ours did not come out as crispy as I had hoped, so next time, I’d leave them in a little longer.

Sausage

• Slice the sausage lengthwise and place into a hot skillet with some oil. You can figure out the rest, right?

Onions

• Slice an onion (try not to tear up) and place them in a hot skillet with oil and toss in some salt and pepper.
• Don’t worry if the skillet is overflowing with onions, give it time and they will reduce into deliciousness.
• Reduce the heat to medium and continue to stir them as they get softer and translucent, about 20 minutes, be patient.
• After a while, the sugar in the onion will  caramelize and get dark, that’s what you’re looking for!

Assembled and ready to eat!

Cheese Sauce

• Soooo, I’ve never made a cheese sauce before and after trying to make one, I’m still not sure I’ve actually made a proper cheese sauce. No, correction, I know for a fact it was not a proper cheese sauce. It had all the makings though, milk, flour, butter, swiss cheese and it tasted good, it was just a bit on the runny side.  I was missing some measuring spoons and a little patience. I’m going to work on that one again and I’ll likely have a post devoted to a kick-ass cheese sauce sometime soon!

Assembly

• The fun part – After slicing the baguette and toasting it under the broiler, we threw on some sausage (slicing them lengthwise meant they could lay nice and flat on the baguette), some caramelized onions, a mound of sweet potato fries and a smothering of cheese sauce.
• It was a two-hander for sure and it absolutely satisfied my craving.
• It’s a sandwich that is definitely a meal all by itself.
• It’s fun to prepare and can totally involve everyone helping out in the kitchen.