Culinary Compass

This sandwich is an homage to the Philly roast pork sandwich. This sandwich typically consists of thinly sliced roasted pork, sharp provolone cheese, and garlicky, wilted broccoli rabe or spinach. All packed tightly into a crusty Italian bread. Here’s my take on this classic sandwich.

It all starts with the pork. Take a boneless pork shoulder, trim off some excess/hard fat and season all around with SPG (salt, pepper, garlic) and put into a roasting pan or Dutch oven. Fill with water until the pork is about halfway submerged. Add a few rosemary stems, a couple sage leaves and one or two bay leaves. Place into the oven at 375 degrees for roughly 3 hours or until fat has fully rendered and pork is fork tender. Once the pork has roasted. Let it rest in the juices for at least 30 minutes and absorb all those juices. Once rested, take it out of the juice and place it in the fridge to fully cool down. Set the pork jus aside. You’ll need that later.

While the pork is cooling down, wash/prep your broccoli rabe or spinach. For my sandwich, I went with broccolini or baby broccoli. It still has that bitterness that is needed for this sandwich but not as intense. There are many ways you can cook this to get it wilted down. I chose to boil my baby broccoli in the pork jus and then finish in a steamer. You’re probably thinking “wait. Where is the garlicky part of this?” Well, here is where my twist starts to come in. I came up with a roasted garlic and Calabrian chile aioli to spread on the sandwich.

For the aioli; take a head of garlic, cut the top off to expose all of the cloves, drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper, then wrap in foil and roast in the oven for about 45 minutes to an hour. You can do this at the same time as you are roasting your pork. Once the garlic is roasted and soft, squeeze it out of the shell and into a mixing bowl. Add mayonnaise and your Calabrian chile. Squeeze in some lemon zest and juice then mix together. Let sit in the refrigerator for about an hour before use to allow all the flavors to meld together.

For the jus; start with a small roux made from butter and flour in a pot. Cook out the flour taste and brown slightly. Roughly 5-8 minutes. Take the leftover pork juice and strain to remove the rosemary, sage and bay leaves. Add in about 4 cups of chicken stock. (You can sub this for water if your pork jus is too salty). Then slowly add your pork jus to the roux whisking as you add so you don’t get clumps. This is called tempering your roux. If you were. To just add it right in, you run the risk of accidentally making dumplings and having clumps in the jus. The goal is not to make gravy but you just want it thick enough that it will adhere to the pork. Once completed it is time to build!

Take your crusty bread and slice it open. I like to take out bread from the top portion to make more room for the good stuff. Layer on that roast garlic Calabrian chile aioli. Add your cheese to the bottom. For mine, I used Swiss because I wanted that extra funk knowing the baby broccoli wouldn’t bring as much bitterness that the sandwich needs. Slice your pork as thin as you possibly can and warm it up in the jus. Take it straight from the jus and into the bread. Place the broccoli rabe or spinach (baby broccoli in my case) on top of the pork and close up the sandwich. Wrap in parchment paper and foil so the entire sandwich just melts together and steams the bread. After about 5 minutes, cut in half, serve with a side of jus for dipping and enjoy!

I feel like I did this sandwich justice and added some great flavor profiles to enhance the pork. You’ll get that salty, savory pork and broccoli with the spicy, garlicky bite of the aioli and the funk of the Swiss cheese. It just works so well together. Enjoy and let me know how you like it!