This weeks contest was a create your own sandwich challenge and I have been wanting to try roasting red peppers for awhile so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. I ended up making a roasted red pepper pesto which I spread on a crusty Italian roll which I put prosciutto with sauteed mushrooms, caramelized onions and melted asiago cheese.
To make the roasted red pepper pesto you first need to roast the red peppers. To do this all you need is a jelly roll pan and a broiler. Place the peppers on the pan and stick under the broiler turned on high for about 20-ish minutes or until they start to get wrinkly and slightly black. Make sure you watch them like a baby cause they can burn quickly...turn the broiler down to low if you need to. Also, make sure you turn them often in order to get every side done evenly.
They will look like this once they are done...then you want to put them in a glass container with a lid so that the steam can help to loosen the skin...it will look like this once the skin is ready to be removed...
To take the skin off just take two forks and pull it right off...it should come off very easily. After you remove the skin take out the seeds and slice the peppers into slivers. Then place them in a food processor with a handful of basil and about 4 cloves of garlic...also add parmesan and either pine nuts, walnuts, cashews, or almonds (or whatever nut you want really!)...I used almonds. Pulse, adding olive oil as you go until the pesto is at the right consistency...you can add salt to taste if you want be careful not to add too much.
Here's what the final pesto should look like...
While your doing the pesto you can get the caramelized onions going...take a medium sized saucepan (do not used non-stick or else you will have trouble deglazing. Pour into the saucepan about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil (lets just be honest here I never really measure anything so all of this just has to be eye-balled haha)...take a few cloves of garlic and let them cook down in the garlic. Chop a medium sized white onion and allow them to cook down over medium heat until they start to "sweat" (you can add a little salt to help the process)...once they are sweating add a little butter and a little agave nectar or honey (the sugars will help the onions to caramelize). Crank the heat up to high/medium-high heat and let the onions do their thing...stir them once or twice to get them off of the bottom of the pan. After they are caramelized removed them from the pan and deglaze with white wine...immediately throw the mushrooms in and cover to let them cook (bring the heat down to medium)...add a little salt to help pull the juices. Once they are cooked there will be a lot of liquid in the pan, at this point add the onions and garlic back into the pan...turn the heat down or off and cover.
Here are the onions beginning to caramelize...
Here is the final garlic/onion/mushroom sauce...
To assemble the sandwich use a crusty Italian roll (I am in Lancaster so I got the closest thing I could find...and let me just tell you it was an embarrassment to a real Italian roll...). Take the pesto and spread it on the top half of the roll...
Then take a few slices of prosciutto and layer them on the bottom half...now I found that I forgot how salty prosciutto is so if you aren't a salty fan you can go with any meat really...sliced grilled chicken would be great! You could even go with capicola or a salami if you wanted to...the meat is pretty interchangeable. After you layer the meat take some of the mushroom sauce and lay it on top of the meat...
Then take the asiago cheese (you can change out the cheese too if you want) and layer it on top of the mushrooms...its okay if it doesn't look perfect cause its going to get all melty anyway. Place it under the broiler until the cheese melts and gets bubbly (make sure it stays open faced when its under the broiler).
This one probably could have stayed under a little longer...until the cheese got more bubbly and browned but it still tasted yummy :)
