KENTUCKY HOT BROWNS

Feeds 4

At the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, the dining room makes nearly 1,200 of these sandwiches in the three days surrounding the Kentucky Derby. 1,200! Invented at the Brown Hotel in the 1920s as another savory dish for the late-night room service menu, this much-loved sandwich has endured well into the twenty-first century. Unlike the other sandwiches in this chapter, the Kentucky Hot Brown is too messy to eat with hands. You’ll need a knife and fork with this one. This is also a great way to use all that leftover turkey after Thanksgiving.

• One 2-pound turkey breast
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 thick slices gluten-free Sandwich Bread (make the slices about 1½ inches thick)
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 27 grams All-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour Blend
• 2 cups whole milk (you can use dairy-free milk, if it’s unsweetened)
• 4 ounces (1 cup) freshly grated Gruyère cheese
• 4 ounces (1 cup) freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese
• Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
• 2 large ripe tomatoes, thickly sliced
• 4 slices cooked bacon
• ½ cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
• 1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika

Prepare to cook. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

Roast the turkey. Drizzle the turkey with the olive oil, then season it with salt and pepper. Put the turkey breast into a large cast-iron skillet. Roast the turkey breast until it reaches an internal temperature of 155°F, about 1½ hours. Let the turkey rest until it is cool enough to handle.

Toast the bread. Since the slices of bread need to be thick to stand up to the sandwich, toast them in the oven at 400°F until they are brown on the top, about 3 minutes. Flip them over and toast the other side. Take them out of the oven and cut them diagonally, to make triangles.

Make the Mornay sauce. Set a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the butter. When the butter has melted, add the flour and whisk them together continuously for 2 to 3 minutes. When a warm cooked-flour scent is released, add the milk to the pot, ½ cup at a time, stirring constantly. Whisk out any lumps and keep stirring, about 5 minutes. When the sauce starts to thicken, add the Gruyère and ½ cup of the Pecorino Romano. Stir until the cheeses are entirely melted. Season the sauce with the nutmeg and salt and pepper.

Assemble the sandwiches. Put all the triangles of the toasted bread on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Slice the cooked turkey into thick slices (about 1 inch thick). Lay turkey slices on top of each triangle, then tomato slices, then pour a ladleful of the Mornay sauce over each slice. Put the baking sheet under the broiler until the sauce melts over the turkey.

Pull the sandwiches out of the oven. Top with the cooked bacon slices, a few pinches of the fresh parsley, the remaining ½ cup of Pecorino Romano, and the paprika. Serve immediately.

Feel like playing?

You can easily omit the bacon on the top, if you want. This dish is rich enough! And you could use any cheese you want to make this sauce, although Parmesan might be too acidic for the final dish. The Mornay sauce here makes a great cheese sauce for pasta or macaroni and cheese.