Shooter sandwiches

[by Tim Hayward, via here]
This weekend, the boy and I made shooter sandwiches, with the recipe accompanying this Guardian column, which is an ode to sandwiches.

It's an incredibly British sandwich: Hollow out bread loaf, stuff with a layer of steak, sauteed mushrooms and onions and another steak and top off with a bread hat. Smush down for at least six hours under heavy weight. The result is condensed carbs and meats. Who can deny that kind of deliciousness?*

Our first one turned out OK, except the bottom got a bit soggy. It was still delicious, but we couldn't slice it up like cake, as shown above. The boy pinpointed the culprit as an overly crisped loaf that we took out too much bread innards out of.

After our initial delicious failure, we also enlisted the help of Two Fat Ladies:
As you can see, they were much more casual about the whole shooter business and wholly support the liberal absorption of juices. So as the boy figured out, don't hollow your bread bowl *too* much, as you will want some bread to absorb the juices, instead of the outer crust.

I think in future incarnations of this sandwich, I'll try splashing some red wine into the onion and mushroom sautee. And perhaps spreading some Dijon mustard on the steaks before layering them into the hollow loaf (we did spread some mustard in the bread hat at the second go around).

My half of the shooter bread will be lunch for a few days this week. I may be working two jobs and going to school four nights a week, but I refuse to eat poorly because of lack of time!

*Well, tortured vegans and vegetarians.