Anthony Bourdain called Uruguay the apex of sandwich making arts. Fair enough. They all — reuben, Philly cheesesteak, french dip, Cubano, BLT, banh mi, croque-monsieur and madame, muffuletta, pan bagnat — fade next to the mount Everest of Uruguayan Chivito.

Imagine beef, ham, bacon, cheese, eggs, tomatoes, olives, capers, onions with a bunch of other stuff tucked into a bun and held together with a healthy doze of mayo. That’s what chivito is — intimidating to look at never mind trying to open wide. But it fits — somehow it does.

Like any national dish, it has variations — from family to family, from restaurant to restaurant. Whatever I was able to pull together and fit in is in the second picture.

— It sure is filling, — noticed my favorite customer. And tasty.

A word on the buns. There are many recipes out there and if you’re a baker, scroll on — this will probably be nothing new. In Thomas Straker’s book The Food You Want to Eat, there is a recipe for milk bread buns with an amazing rhythm to its steps. What makes it so is the timing:
— the night before, ingredients come together in a bowl of a stand mixer — 30 min tops — and the resulting dough goes into a refrigerator overnight;
— the next day, the dough is rolled out by hand into ten balls — 15 minus — which are let sit at a room temperature on baking sheets covered for two hours, no work involved;
— they are baked 18 minutes and cooled — no work.

Because there is lots of milk and butter in the dough they freeze beautifully. These are buns you want for all your burger-sandwich needs — no hard crust to scratch gums, soft and pliable to flatten under pressure, dense enough to hold the juices, and tasty without overpowering the ingredients. Let me know if you want the details.

#food #sandwich #uruguayanfood #chivito #cookingathome #cooking #onmytable