Saturday, October 2, 2010

Chicken, Fresh Mozzarella And Fresh Rosemary Panini On Naan Bread-First Panini We Have Had That Was Better The Second Day

After making Aarti's wonderful pizza, we had a couple of pieces of naan bread left over.  Obviously, such good and useful food shouldn't go to waste, so I put on my thinking cap and started working on how to make a panini with it.

We had some fresh tomatoes around and we also had some of that wonderful Belgioioso mozzarella and I thought I would use those.  That left selecting a meat and I choose some deli sliced chicken.  These are all fine ingredients, but I thought I could put this over the top by seasoning this with some fresh rosemary because I do feel rosemary and chicken is a righteous combination.

Thus the design of the sandwich was this:

I sprayed some EVOO on the inside of the naan bread and then sprinkled chopped, fresh rosemary on that.  Then I covered each slice with the deli chicken meat.  Finally, I laid down the cheese and fresh tomato and flipped over the top slice of naan/chicken and I had a sandwich with bread and chicken on both sided with cheese and tomato in the middle. 

I then put the sandwich in a zip lock bag and put it in the fridge for a while to let the rosemary flavor meld into the EVOO.

After that, all it needed was a few minutes on the Griddler and dinner was done. (We also served it with some of the tomato basil soup we got from Costco a while back). Here is the finished panini:


As for how it turned out: the fresh tomato and mozzarella made it a bit moist and sloppy to eat. Not impossible, just a bit sloppy. But if the sandwich was a bit juicy, the flavor was spot on. As I said, rosemary and chicken go great together and that was the first thing my wife commented on when she tasted it.  The chicken,  tomato and fresh mozzarella also was a good combination of meat, vegetable and cheese.

As for the naan bread, it is a fabulous bread for panini and we will definitely be using it again and experimenting with it.

We had a fine meal of this with that organic tomato basil soup from Costco and that left a quarter of a sandwich for our lunch the next day.  And that is where things get really interesting: this is the first panini we have made that was better the next day!

After sitting overnight in the fridge, the sandwich solidified and was definitely less messy to eat. Also, the rosemary flavor blended in better after sitting overnight.  We both felt that this sandwich improved overnight.  And it works both hot and cold, because I warmed mine up and my lovely wife had her's cold.

This experiment was a great success both with this specific combination and our discovery that naan bread works great for making panini.  And it was a good use of Costco ingredients with the bread, EVOO and cheese, plus the soup on the side.

5 comments:

  1. Very interesting, especially the part about the sandwich being better the next day. My question is, when you say you sprayed EVOO on the "inside" of the naan - did you actually split the naan in half, or did you use two pieces of naan, and you're referring to the underside as the inside? I'm just having trouble figuring out how you did this! Thanks.

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  2. I am sorry, I can see how this is a bit confusing.

    I just mean the underside of the bread. I did indeed use two pieces of naan and I sprayed the side of each piece that faced the "inside" of the sandwich.

    I will add a comment about this.

    Thanks for your comment and bringing up this issue.

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  3. Now that is a good looking sandwich!

    E.A.T local E.A.T. well

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  4. Hello!!!!

    Nice delecious recipee.........!!!!

    --------------------
    Kanyakumari Hotels

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  5. Mike, noticed your mention of soup....I happen to have some FREE coupons for Tabatchnick soups if you or any readers want to try them -- Would be a big hit with any and all COSTCO soup lovers! Email carmdru@gmail.com if you're interested!

    ReplyDelete