The Chili Chicken Gut-Bustinator

It's simple. You've come from the future, and everyone knows time travel isn't easy on the stomach. So the first thing you've got to do when touching down in the past is fuel up. And what, you might whimper, is the best choice of fuel? Why, only the CHILI CHICKEN GUT BUSTINATOR, the leanest, meanest, most pant-poppingly, waist-stretchingly, bowel-movement-so-huge-it-clogs-the-toiletlingly amazing sandwich yet produced by the fine people here at ESP. Check out the recipe and review below.

INGREDIENTS
1 can diced tomatoes	400g ground beef
1 can beans, assorted	2 idaho potatoes
li>2 large chicken breasts	4 kaiser rolls
2 beets	all the fixins fit for a BBQ

THE INSTRUCTIONS
1. Make chili (grill the meat, add the beans and tomatoes and let simmer for an hour on low. Add cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper and everything else in your spice rack)
2. Add chicken to chili and let simmer for an hour or so, or at least until it's soft and tender as some nubile breasts.
3. Slice up the potatoes into very thin cross sections, toss them with olive oil, sat, pepper and basil. Arrange them on a tray and cook for about 45mins at 450 degrees.
4. Peel the beets and boil them for an hour.
5. Once everything is ready, toast your buns. Get ready for the great gut-bustination.
6. Take two forks to the chicken in the chili and split it up. Take some major spoonfuls of the chili chicken and glob them onto a bun. Top with a layer of potato chips and sliced beets. And prepare to have your gut busted.
7. Experiment! Add some cheese and play with the spices you use. We've taken to slobbering the whole thing with Tequila BBQ sauce. In fact, incorporating ingenius booze treats in the 'wich is highly encouraged.
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Let me set the context for this sandwich before I review it.

It had been a week since I’d seen John while he was away on [ski] business: in this week I seemed to have drank significantly more than I ate. This resulted in my sleeping through the alarm that I had set to catch a bus to Boston to visit a very dear friend of mine, though in my defence, I was likely mildly concussed. Fortunately, in being the self-proclaimed well-connected uber-genius that I am, I managed to snaggle a ride to the United States of Murrca with an acquaintance I’d met the night before. But I digress. The point is I was a wreck, and still wasn’t properly nourished as per the standards we’ve now set for ourselves when I set off on my Boston adventure. And the bus ride back to my home and native land involved me gnawing ravenously on the armrest of the seat of the person beside me, the lucky devil. I returned to Montreal unwell and unrested. But I was also privileged enough to return to Montreal to have this sandwich brewing in my kitchen.

THE REVIEW:

1.THE BREAD

Sesame seed Kaisers that turned to goo on my tongue. Fluffy, white, and completely void of flavour and nutrition. Generally, this is not my kind of bun. I actually hallowed it out so I could replace the airy dough with even more meat filling, and this very much tickled my fancy. I give these pillowy little guys a Keith’s.

2.THE MEAT

SO MUCH MEAT. Ground beef and chicken breast melded into one to form a chili-like paste of taste. And, much to my surprise and delight, it wasn’t overwhelmingly spiced with cumin. In fact, it wasn’t overly spiced at all, which, between the two of us, is quite the rarity. The chicken was pulled in pork-like fashion (my suggestion, which is quite possibly/probably the crux of the meal) to sop up all of the delicious juices in the pot. SO MUCH MEAT. And I was really, really, really craving it. Mmm. Arrogant Bastard.

3.THE REST

A can of diced tomatoes, some spices, and some beans. Personally, I would have put more diced tomatoes, but my diced tomato obsession is the biggest wedge I can think of in our romance (apparently I’m prohibited from purchasing more, even if they’re on sale), so I won’t dwell on the matter. It shan’t change the rating. The “rest” was suited to the sandwich, and it went a step beyond: the flat cut potato "chips" in the sandwich were a truly spectacular call on behalf of the chef. However, the addition of beets was odd and didn’t at all go with the rest of the sandwich, despite the copious rants and raves about how energy efficient they are, how they could feed all starving people, how they could save the world, etc. I just took them out of the sandwich… so I will take them out of the rating equation. Unibroue.

4.THE OVERALL GUT-BUSTING DELISIOSITY

It busted a gut. This is typically for me, unlike for John, a CON. I rather enjoy maintaining the resemblance of a figure and try not to eat until the point of needing to undo my pants. But, this time, after a week of salads and beer, it was a pro. Such a pro. Arrogant Bastard.

5.THE OUTLANDISHNESS

Not too outlandish… but sometimes, after a week of outlandish levels of outlandishness, you just need to come home to what you know and love. And way too much meat and white starch was just what the doctor ordered (N.B. I am a Guatemalan certified M.D.). I suppose one could deem the beets as rather unusual, too. Unibroue.

"A Pig in a Pig in a Blanket in a Blanket."

John will dispute this title of this sandwich, since the second 'pig' and first 'blanket' are the very same slice of bacon, but I say poppycock. It not only gives the title more zip, but it pays homage to my heroes at Epic Meal Time.  Sure, they may have turned down (read: completely ignored) my offer to star in an episode and consume their bacon laden meals, but we're still cool.


I thought this meal was going to be not too difficult. Grill some sausage, fry some bacon, arrange some fruit, nothing I haven't done before. But I decided to take on a new challenge - the challenge that is baking bread. It is important to note, before I begin my tale, that I can't bake. I try, I measure, I sift, I follow directions to a tee, but in the end, something is always amiss. And yet, being the daring individual that I am, I decided to throw caution to the wind and curse the bread gods. This is perhaps a poor decision when attempting to bake bread - bread which was sticky verging on gluey, which rose over the brink of the bowl, and which didn't end up tasting remotely like egg bread but was rather plain. Oh well. The mountain was climbed, flattened, then rolled up with grilled sausage, bacon, cock sauce, grainy mustard, and a slice of pineapple and apple for a hint of sweetness. The blankets were then embellished with smily faces and biologically accurate body parts. I forgot to mention that I am also a scientist.



THE DAMNING REVIEW
Now usually having a sandwich torn to shreds is a good thing; it means the 'wich is delicious, easily devoured, and a messy delight in the hands, on the face, and all over your shirt. It's a good thing. But the last arena in which you want your hoagie to get ripped to pieces is on the review board. The sandwich samurai is of the most unforgiving culinary persuasion. Cross him, and you may never get invited back to the table again. So, little piggy, prepare yourself to get sent packing and crying 'weeweeweeweewee' all the way home.





1. THE BREAD
Huge points go to the first lady of flatbread for taking the audacious and extremely ballsy step of baking her own blanket for the chilly pig in need of wrapping. Never mind that it turned out more bland than bannock baked by 16th Métis on a Prairie plain and looked like grandma had peeled off a layer of flabby elbow skin and slapped it down on a plate : this sandwich took an insane commitment to self-prostration at the hands of the oven. And though it certainly tasted nothing like the kosher egg-bread it was supposed to, I award this ambitious baking flub a full ARROGANT BASTARD. 5/5

2. THE MEAT
I'll be the first to admit that ever since May rolled around, I've been reminiscing of strolling through the Annex while noshing on Toronto's infamously delicious grilled street meat. My clearly competitive co-chef could have had nothing else in mind, aiming straight for my all-too-easily-satisfied and self-interesting gut by serving up some grilled weiners snuggled sumptuously beside a hefty helping of bacon inside that home-baked bread blanket of hers. I was helpless to resist (see Appendix: me-shoving-my-face below). Full marks. ARROGANT BASTARD. 5/5

3. THE REST
To round out this little invention, the spooning duo of meat was accompanied by a smattering of grilled pineapple and apple. In addition to the uninspiringly uncreative letdown of a duplication of apples, the inclusion of these tawdry fruits was anything but an extreme jungle adventure (see Haida Gwaii for a groin-grabbingly good time). Combined with the offensive taste-bud assault of too much Rooster Sauce, the overpowering and confusing spicy vs. sweet just didn't tickle my pickle in the least. I give this wilted pickle a mere BELLE GUEULE 2/5.

4. THE GUT-BUSTING DELICIOSITY
Though ambition is to be rewarded, particularly in the turbulent world of the ESP where chaos reigns, it should not distract from the hunt for a coherent and well-rounded 'wich. Shoot for the stars, by all means, but try to aim for a single galaxy cluster, lest ye be lost in the infinite realms of the cosmos. Sitting down for the pig in a pig in a blanket in a blanket, it's easy to get lost. Is it a tropical fruit bonanza? A street meat delight? Or a loaf of grandma's finest home-baked whole wheat? My tongue-buddies were blasted with scatter shot and never recovered. A middling KEITHS. 3/5


5. OVERALL OUTLANDISHNESS
All this writing is making me hungry, so I'll keep my final thoughts brief. Any sandwich artist so devoted to the timely perfection of their craft to go to great lengths, pains, and frustrations to bake their own bread is either a genius or a complete lunatic. With the current chef in question, I think the answer is obvious (note anatomical accuracy of the male members of the blanketed sammitzes). With that in mind, I award the Pig in a Pig in a Blanket in a Blanket top marks for outlandishness, and an overall total of ARROGANT BASTARD. 5/5

Clearly my love of sandwiches is too great to really rip a 'wich to shreds - I simply get nostalgic and reminisce over the sweet feel of a bulging bread-encased delicacy in my hands.

Until next week!

"The Haida Gwaii"

We had a couple of practice runs before the competitive aspect of the ESP took off, but without realizing how grand the sandwiches would be, which led to the urgent need to give them their own photoshoots, which then led to the compulsion to make them public spectacles of admiration and awe, we have no record of them. So before I go on to rate John's first solo creation and our first photo-documented Experimental Sandwich, "The Haidawaii," I would like to take a moment to remember both "The Wafflewich" (bacon, egg, sausage, jalapenos, and maple syrup in between two homemade waffles) and "The Savage" (slices of a sirloin roast wrapped in pork fat, grilled to bluish purple perfection, placed on grilled baguette with a mango, pear, radish and Jack Daniels chutney). You were wonderful sandwiches and I thoroughly enjoyed eating you both. Perhaps on an uncreative day you will be revisited.

But enough of the past! This "sandwich," if it can be called as such, was truly a work of art. I almost didn't want to eat it... but that notion was soon surpassed by my desire to eat it. And here is the verdict:

1. THE BREAD
A hollowed out pineapple can hardly be considered bread, but then again, this is the Experimental Sandwich Program. It still contained the rest of the sandwich's ingredients, and so its function was served. Plus I love the golden sweetness that is pineapple, especially when it's been lightly grilled. I give this a Unibroue.

2. THE MEAT
Ehhhh black forest ham is okay for a brown bag sandwich that you're preparing while brushing your teeth and pulling up your pants, but it's hardly the main meat-gredient of an ESP. It salvages extra points for having spicy Asian paste that was left in the fridge from the girl we're subletting from and for being grilled. Even still, Belle Gueulle.

3. THE REST
Sliced grapes, apple, and cucumber tossed in an abundance of chopped parsley and mint. Personally, I'm not a huge cucumber or mint fan, and the spices were overpowering. Ah geez this is harsh... Lucky Lager. (Note the sweet potato fries: these are my creation, and would still not constitute as a part of "The Rest" anyhow. Sandwich only.)

4. THE OVERALL GUT-BUSTING DELISIOSITY
This was hardly gutbusting... four slices of ham and a half of a pineapple's worth of fruit and vegetables.  Compared to the other meals that come out of our kitchen, this really seemed like more of a snack. But this is hardly a complaint - I like light fare and we ate it right before going to play tennis. It didn't slow down my lightning speed and reflexes. It gets a Keith's.

5. THE OUTLANDISHNESS
This was no sandwich. There was no bread, there were no condiments, and you didn't eat it with your hands. It looked more like a fruity drink an underage girl would order in Mexico than anything else. Here's where "The Haida Gwaii" makes up for lost points. 100% Arrogant Bastard Ale.