I’d like to dedicate this post to the tropical heat wave we’ve endured in New York City this Summer. I dreamed this sandwich up largely to escape the humidity, so, weather gods, I salute you. When Olive and I made a trip to the in-laws a few weeks ago, we were all set to visit a u-pick farm for fresh strawberries. Alas, one farm after another informed us that because of the abundance of rain, local strawberries came and went by the end of May. Suffice it to say, that Olive will be getting me my birthday present very early next year— a round-trip to a farm and taking the long way home in a car smelling like a berry patch. (I never worry about picking more than I can eat because strawberries freeze excellently.)
I’ve had to rely on some California organic strawberries these past few months and occasionally find some that come close to tasting farm-fresh. If you’ve ever eaten fresh farm stawberries, you’ll know that they have their own distinctive flavor, which is not defined as “sweet,” but “strawberry.” I’ll stop here before I start to rant.
These little sandwiches require very little work. It took me all of 5 minutes to assemble all the ingredients, cut and create. You can make the crostini on even smaller rolls and serve them as party appetizers, or make a few for a light lunch for your pleasure alone.
Viennese rolls, if you’ve never had them before, make excellent breakfast rolls, as they’re perfectly pear shaped, soft, and sweet in a restrained way, so that if you added scallion cream cheese or had them toasted with butter you wouldn’t feel like you were committing a breakfast faux-pas. The Viennese rolls I used for the crostini were speckled with poppy seeds (they also come with sesame seeds or plain), which I thought would work well paired with the strawberries. If you can’t find Viennese rolls, brioche buns or challah bread would work just as well. The sprouts (alfalfa or any other), on the other hand, are irreplaceable. They ground the sandwich with their earthy bitterness, adding a third dimension to the otherwise tasty but predictable sweet-and-spicy combination.
strawberry wasabi avocado sandwiches
makes 4 crostini
3/4 tbsp light mayonnaise
1/4 tsp+ wasabi paste
1-2 slices of very ripe avocado
1-2 medium size strawberries, thinly sliced
1 Viennese bread roll
sprouts, two large pinches (alfalfa or other)
Cut the roll into 4 1/4″ thin slices and toast them. I recently gifted Olive with a toaster with a “bagel” feature after getting rid of my 15 year old “I can start fires” toaster oven. his nifty feature allows you to toast bread and bagels on one side only, which is exactly the way I toasted these Viennese slices.
Mix the mayonnaise and wasabi paste together. The 1/4 tsp wasabi paste for the 4 costini is a hint, but if you’d like to add a more powerful punch, add some more in. I find the wasabi paste that comes out of a tube to be particularly fresh and powerful.
Spread the wasabi-mayo thinly over the toasted bread and then spread the avocado in another thin layer, smoothing out as you go. Place the sprouts along the crostini and tuck the sliced strawberries under and between the sprouts, wedging them into the avocado spread.
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