You know those foods that you have vivid memories of? I still remember the first time I had a muffaletta. My folks had gotten a half of one for the family to split. I remember thinking how are 4 of us going to eat on half a sandwich. The thing was so massive that we had leftovers. The muffaletta was also one of the first things I wanted to make sure my wife had on her first trip home to New Orleans. We sat in an alley on Decatur and ate the muffaletta with some Marinated mushrooms from central grocery. We were like rabid dogs. These sandwiches are as big of landmark to us, in New Orleans as a Po-boy.
The thing about them; though, is that it’s all in the bread and the stuffing. Neither the bread nor the olive salad, are available to buy outside of the area. I get the olive salad off of Amazon- and I prefer the following brands: central grocer (the created of this masterpiece), boscoli (my favorite) or occhupinti. All of them are made locally to New Orleans, and all are very good. I’ve seen some products similar to these at various stores in other parts of the country, but non have been anywhere near close.
To get around the bread dilemma, I use French bread to make them at home. I found that with some French breads, if toast them a little bit before using them I can get them similar to what o find in New Orleans.
What else do we need for this?
Olive oil
Mortadella
Capicola or deli ham
Genoa salami
Sliced mozzarella
Provolone
If you can’t find mortadella, bologna will work as a substitute. Personally, I’m not a fan of either so I use calabrese salami. Calabrese salami is a spicy salami from Spain. In a nutshell, use whichever cold cuts you want. The thing with this sandwich to remember is to stick with fresh and high quality.
Simply pour some of the olive oil from the olive salad on the bread, or a good bottled oil. Stack your meats and cheeses and them Toast if you like. After they come out of the 400 degree oven, cover with olive salad and put the top on. Quick tip here is to press the lid down so that it soaks up the oil from the olive salad.
Enjoy