Hearth Bread Sandwich Appetizer

[foodnelson]

I made some Hearth Bread in my oven on Sunday. After a long day of baking bread, I did not feel like putting a lot of effort into cooking dinner. So I came up with this little open faced sandwich that was pretty darn good. A few of these sandwiches with a glass of wine makes a perfect meal. It would make a great party appetizer as well. It will also give you a reason to use some of those summer tomatoes from your garden. I hope you will give it a try.
Finger Food! | Wild Forage

[pyg]

Re: Hearth Bread Sandwich Appetizer

I eat a variation of this all the time these days, often at breakfast. I use a good live fire at lowish hearth temps (300-500F). I prefer adding butter to a warmed cast iron skillet just enough to melt the butter and then a ciabatta/rustic bread medium thick sliced followed by tomato and then cheese. Salt to taste and depending on cheese. I usually don't salt. With a proper live fire you will get GBD (golden brown and delicious) cheese, the tomato will fully cook and soften parts of the crusty bread where as the bottom (depending on hearth temp) will crisp up. Sometimes I'm not sure this isn't better than pizza. For a proper breakfast try live fire scrambled eggs in a cast iron skillet. They do an absolutely magical souffle thing! I'm still working out a simple proper recipe to get the eggs to hold. Try 1T flour to 2 eggs for example. This all derives from being hungry while [pre]firing the oven for a later bake/pizza. Pretty much as soon as you can push back your first fire you are ready to cook. Sorry, no pics, but I may do a video of the eggs as it's crazy.

Handling cast iron in a live fire requires a special tool, which in my case is a hook (just a heavy bent wire) on a long wooden handle. All my cast iron has a hole in the handle and I just use the hook tool to move the skillets about. You need to develop an extra keen awareness not to even brush the skillets for quite some time after they come out. I don't even touch cold skillets except with a potholder just to stay in the habit. Also be content to burn out/destroy potholders/hotpads on a pretty regular basis or just fold up a section of newspaper to the right size and use it to start your next fire after it gets destroyed.

Edit: I see your version is not cooked which I didn't manage to notice on the first read through as all I could think about was the live fire version.... it just colors my reality so.

[mrchipster]

Re: Hearth Bread Sandwich Appetizer

I have been using silicone hot pads on the cast while wearing cooks gloves or oven mitts. It works well.