Start Simple: Sandwiches (part 1)

Often overlooked, mostly underrated. When preparing something exotic seems oh so tiresome and time consuming try the humble sandwich. I mean, if high street chains can create baguettes which - let's face it - lack the wow factor, seem damp, understuffed (some can be so stingy on the filling) anything you create by hand can only be an improvement.

Sandwiches - yes, the simple sandwich, can be used in a variety of ways (all of them end with eating); for lunch, for tea, for breakfast, for schooldays, workdays, holidays and salad tea fillers (basically, a tea which consists of sandwiches, nibbles and salad). Snack packs, gifts packs, picnics and parties. Don't serve up the same egg mayo, tuna mayo and chicken try and be a little bit avant garde. Even if its just a case of adding a lettuce leaf; let's make them a little bit better, you know?

The key to a sumptuous sandwich - decadent, tea time-ish and remind you of croquet, garden parties and prim white frocks - is the bread. Do not scrimp on the bread. In further posts I'll tell you how to make mmmm-mmm-mm bread from scratch, but for now let me introduce you to the types you can try and experiment with, and some flavours which sound far fetched but taste so good.

Baguettes: Often the most exotic a sandwich sees, these sticks of bread for the perfect sarnie should be crusty on the outside, firm to touch, thick around the middle and tapering to the ends. The thickness of the baguettes affects the quality of the sandwich on the inside (too thin and you'll just be eating crust). Try and get them fresh and they're really quite cheap. The cutting of the baguette shouldn't be overlooked either - mitre it in the middle for an off the shoulder look; cut straight for an even balance; cut up into chunks for bite size picnic/party sarnies. Sounds silly, but food should be fun to look at first and thats going to get the taste buds going before the first bite.

Paninis: These flatbreads have cropped up from the continent and make for tasty toasties, not too bad untoasted but still thats not where they're talents lie. Like a flattened baguette in essence. Aim for a firm touch and cuttable depth. Again, fresh first and foremost for choice - as with all breads. Cutting ain't so much an issue, down the middle and mitred or straight across; cutting down the middle to halve the panini is the worst bit I find, trying to get an even distribution top and tail, the key is to let the knife work not you. Use a decent breadknife with a sharp serrated edge, hold it firm between thumb and forefinger, let the knife sit along the edge and scrap back nd forth with an even pressure. Once you've broken the surface the urge is to push down and get to the end - no, don't! take you time and keep that pressure even.

Bagels: These donut looking breads are simply superb toasted or raw. Often with a variety of flavours from sweet to savoury they are sandwich versatility. Again, fresh please! With a firm touch, decent thickness and sun kissed colouring hopefully. Follow the panini halving cutting instructions for an even keel. Serve in crescents for portions worth filling.

Croissants: Frisky french crescents or elongated lending themselves to sweet or savoury fillings, aim fresh again - they just taste nicer when fresh, less stale (and that goes for all breads) - try and get them bulky in the middle, decent taper to the ends, with a nice lobster looking segmentation to the make up. Careful with halving or you could end up with an uneven top and tail. And don't forget the colouring indicators of the crust factor the lighter the colour the softer the depth of the crust.

Pittas: These flatbreads make for interesting filled sandwiches. Hot or cold, they work really well - simply split into a pocket (sounds hard, but simple - the aim is to get the knife inside the pitta and separate the top and tail layer). You can get snack sized, full sized, wholegrain or plain. Try and get fresh, less stale, soft touch with a hint of golden colouring, don't get them too cracked to start with - it'll make toasting them worse.

Bread: The basic. Loaves, buns, rolls, fresh baked or factory farmed, sliced or unsliced. Oh the questions, the questions - ultimately, it all depends on what you want your bread to do. For quick snack options in bulk: factory farmed or sliced fresh. For parties and pack lunches or picnics: buns or rolls for the effect. Triangle bread slices for true garden party decadence (and troupe them upright together for a simple touch of class) or half them for quick don't-care-ness. Either way, the thickness, the quality of the bread itself will help or hinder the simple sandwich. Fresh baked often has a denser texture and more air pockets which can be disconcerting to the novice fresher; factory farmed is usually lighter in texture, less pocketed and softer to touch with a significantly dwarfed crust, touched up at the top to get that dark noticeable crust. Fresh baked has a more haphazard approach to crusting - uneven colouring; in fact, individual. I'm not a crust person (I don't want more curly hair - I have to straighten the stuff already) so to me, the cincher is the crust question, and I like soft touch. Basically, I'm a factory farmed girl but it's all individual really. Cost isn't much of an issue - unless its an economic downturn in which case breads a good indicator!

Those were the main types, but what are the main tastes? Well, here's a brief list of flavours to tantalise and explore: Wholegrain, white, cinnamon, onion, tomato, cheese, peppered, olive, plain..not exhaustive but a few to try. Choose carefully depending on what you want in them - are your sandwiches sweet? in which case an onion bagel ain't first choice. Or are they savoury? In which case I'd be loathe to choose cinnamon first.

Then again you may want to explore other sandwich like bread basis substitutes:
Scones, muffins, pikelets, crumpets, brioche, hot cross buns, teacakes, wraps, pizza bases.And let's not think sandwiches need be just bread or yeast based. I'm lumping in crackers into the sandwich sector - anything you can put anything on, sandwich need not be closed but can be open too! The possibilities then are endless. In which case, now you know what you can use as the beginning bit what can we put on them? See Start Simple: Sandwiches (part 2) for some suggestive suggestions.