Mason-Dixon Recipes

Muffoletta Sandwich

How many muffs do you think you've made in your life?

         — Mary Jane Clark, That Old Black Magic

I was introduced to this sandwich while eating lunch at Mississippi's oldest restaurant, located in Meridian—called Weidmann’s (though they misspelled the name of the sandwich). Fortunately I was having lunch with a gentleman who loved Louisiana foods and explained the sandwich to me, so I ordered it. From the moment I took that first bite, I was hooked.

The Muffoletta sandwich, hearty and full of flavor, was born in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Actually, due to the 300,000 Sicilian immigrants who landed in New Orleans between the 1880s and 1920s—who were escaping poverty, punitive taxation, and anti-Sicilian policies—it was invented in the local New Orleans community of "Little Palermo."

Sicilian Muffoletta bread is a flat, round, spongy loaf with a soft crust topped with sesame seeds that the immigrants brought with them. History has lost the name of the Sicilian baker in New Orleans who first baked and sold Muffoletta bread (a soft round loaf from where the sandwich takes its name). However, the name of the Sicilian grocer who first introduced the Muffoletta sandwich was Lupo Salvatore. He was owner of what is now one of the city’s oldest markets, the Central Grocery.

Lupo Salvatore noticed the Sicilian immigrants, who were working at a nearby farmer’s market, would buy salami, ham, cheese, olive salad and Muffoletta bread and eat them separately. In 1906, He decided to cut the bread and combine all of the antipasti ingredients inside like a sandwich and sell it. Thus, the Muffoletta sandwich was born, though Salvatore misspelled the name as "muffuletta." After all, he was a grocer, not a baker and thus unfamiliar with the spellings of the many Sicilian breads.

Street vendors took up the trend, including Frank “muffoletta man” Di Nicola, who sold them from street to street. Now a distinct New Orleans specialty, the sandwiches are widely available around town—but the question now is: hot or cold? Napoleon House, a bar that’s been open since 1914, started serving food in the 1970s and claims to have introduced the hot muffoletta sandwich, which binds all of the goodness together by melting the cheeses. Today, you’ll find both variations.

The Bread

Mufoletta bread is quite rare outside of New Orleans, so Italian bread or Calabrese is "close enough." Sourdough bread, or some Ciabatta bread, may have to be an "all they have" bread, depending on the local area. Actually, any bread will do, but a thicker, denser bread will stand up to the olive salad better. It's traditionally made on round bread, though you can use a sub roll.

The Salad

The olive salad is like a tapenade—a traditional condiment from southeastern France along the Mediterranean. It includes, of course, olives (including green olives, black olives and the olive oil), celery, cauliflower, carrots, sweet peppers, onions, capers, parsley, pepperoncini, oregano, garlic, as well as the vinegar used to preserve the vegetables and other herbs and spices. The appearance, taste and texture of different olive salads varies because of differences in the herbs and spices. However, today the pickled cauliflower, celery, carrots, peppers, onion, shallots, and capers can be found altogether in giardiniera.

The olive salad is made at least a day before making the Muffoletta sandwich, in order to let the flavors marinate. When the flavor-infused olive oil and vinegar from the olive salad soaks into the bread, it makes a much better sandwich. It's a good salad to use on a variety of sandwiches, so it can be something stored in the refrigerator for other uses. Because everything is brined already, then topped with olive oil, it should stay good for a long time, at least several months. The limiting factor will be the expiration dates of the ingredients.

The Name

Muffoletta is commonly misspelled muffoletto, muffuletta, or muffaletta, though that may be as contentious as hot or cold. One authoritative site has found 40 distinct ways to spell it, though the correct spelling is "mufoletta." Muffoletta, Ltd.  
Muffoletta is actually the 18th most common spelling, but is derived from the Sicilian word "muffola," which means a fingerless mitten. The diminutive suffix "etta" has a small and endearing connotation—thus "small, fingerless mitten" (the shape of the bread).

INGREDIENTS

Olive Salad

1 cup green olives with pimento, drained (can use 1:1 mix green and black olives)
1 cup giardiniera, drained (substitute pickled peppers)
5-10 pepperoncini, drained
¹/₄₃ cup olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
¹/₂ tsp parsley
¹/₂ tsp oregano
¹/₂ tap basil
¹/₂ tsp minced garlic
¹/₄ tsp finely ground black pepper

Sandwich Bread and Meats

1 10-in loaf round Italian bread
¹/₄ lb sliced capicola (substitute deli ham}
¹/₄ lb sliced mortadella (Italian sausage)
¹/₄ lb sliced salami (hard Italian or Genoa)
¹/₄ lb sliced provolone cheese
¹/₄ lb sliced Emmantaler cheese (a Swiss cheese)

DIRECTIONS

Place the olives in the mixing bowl. Fill the bowl with clean, cold water, and rinse them under cold running water for 30 seconds. Pour them into a colander to drain off the water, and leave them in the colander to dry at room temperature for 5 minutes.

Chop olives and giardiniera, place in a large bowl. Trim the stem ends off the pepperoncini, allow any trapped brine to drain. Chop and add to olives. Measure spices into mixture and stir well to combine. Season with salt and pepper before stirring in the olive oil and vinegar.

Pack mixture into clean glass jars, making sure to top each jar with olive oil and vinegar from the bowl. Transfer to refrigerator. Ideally, allow to chill for at least 24 hours before using.

Scoop out part of the bread interior to make room for the antipasti. The sandwich is constructed by first painting olive oil on the insides of the two halves of bread. The olive oil seals the bread so that it can then hold a thick layer of olive salad: about ¼ cup is added to each half.

Then add Italian meats (a 10" loaf uses ¼ pound each of mortadella, cappicola and salami) are layered thickly on one side, and the cheese (¼ pound each of provolone and an Emmantaler) are layered thickly on the other side. Thickly means that each muffoletta sandwich is filled with 1¼ pounds of meat and cheese plus half a cup of olive salad.

The two halves are then joined and wrapped with plastic wrap, so that none of the filling leaks out from the inside. Thus the advantage of the muffoletta loaf: its round shape and interior pocket securely encloses the filling. Set under a cast iron pan or other weight to lightly press it down.

Set aside for at least 1 hour or overnight for more developed flavor. Unwrap and slice into 8 triangular pieces and serve it at room temperature, or into 4 large slices for hungry people.

Return to Mason-Dixon Recipes