Toasted Pate, Bacon, & Truffle Cheese Sandwich – AKA: Bougie Sandwich for the Masses

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Sometimes you just want a sandwich. Sometimes you want to go waaay overboard and be ridiculous in every way possible. This is the latter.

Like many former peasant foods, pate has gone from a very down to earth food of necessity to an expensive delicacy. Why? Well, at one time, lobsters were considered ugly sea-bugs only worthy for the poorest of folk. But they’re delicious! Dip ’em in a little butter…and, wow. It seems the upper crust yearn for the simpler things, but will pay whatever the market will bear for them.

Pate doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, but it can sure add some bougie-ness to your dish! Let’s pair it up with some bacon, onions, and some cheesy goodness.

Hold on, your cheese isn’t flashy enough, it needs some truffles in it to fit in around here. Luckily, truffle infused cheese can be gotten for a relatively low price as well, so we’re only pretending to break the bank here. So, let’s sneak onto that private country club and walk the grounds for a while. No one needs to know!

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Servings: 1 You or Me (2, if you’re a weird sharing type)

• Swirl Rye Bread (any Rye will do)
• 2 Tbsp. Pork Pate (Chicken or Duck is fine)
• 4 Strips Bacon
• 3 oz. Truffle Cheese
• 2 THICK Red Onion Rings
• 1 Medium Dill Pickle (or 2 small)
• Tomato
• Dijon Mustard
• Salt
• Pepper

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1.) Take out a large (12 in. preferred) stainless steel pan and heat on medium. Don’t add any oil because the bacon will cook in its own fat, which will be really useful later on as well. I don’t like my bacon too crispy, so cooking for 3 minutes a side is where I want it to be. If you want it crispier, guess what? Cook it a bit longer. Once done, remove from the pan, but leave the grease.

2.) Keep the skillet there with all the wonderful bacon grease and the heat still on, and add your onion rings. You’ll cook these for around 7-8 minutes flipping around occasionally until they too have a bit of a crisp to them. Remove, and let’s continue on to the next.

3.) The next step is pretty important, so don’t skip it. One might feel the need to layer the whole strips of bacon on the sandwich and whole rings of onions because…what…it looks cooler? Is it more manly? Well, try biting into that sandwich and having whole strips of bacon come out with each bite and onions falling to the floor. Nobody wants floor onions. We’re going to chop them up and combine them together in a bowl for easy, spreadable, distribution. Once done, set them aside for now.

4.) The rest of the sandwich comes together really quickly. Now would be a good time to preheat your toaster-oven or regular size oven to 350 F. Next, the steps for sandwich construction are as follows:

• Take one piece of your bread and spread your pate on one side until evenly distributed.

• Spoon the bacon and onion mix on top of the pate (use all of it!).

• Place your tomato slices next and sprinkle a little sea salt and crack a bit of fresh ground pepper on top.

• Slice your cheese nice and thin and layer it on top. I chose Truffle Toma cheese from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese, a local company here well known for its blue cheese. Toma cheese is a nice buttery, meltable cheese, and any swiss-style could be substituted.

• Almost there! Slice the pickles thin as well, and top it off.

• Finally, apply the mustard to one side of the other slice and close the sandwich.

4.) Place that sandwich (gently) into your oven or toaster oven and cook until the cheese melts and before the bread gets too toasted. Inside my toaster oven, this took 6-7 minutes, but your results may vary. Just don’t let the bread get too hard.

Once toasted, cut in half and enjoy. Feel free to pair with a nice lager or stout if you imbibe, or a nice sparkling blood orange soda if you don’t. So for now, lets just pretend that we’re bougie, and, hey, now you won’t have to avoid acres of goose sh*t land mines on the way from the golf course to the clubhouse to get one of these beautiful sandwiches.