Making a Shooter Sandwich

A Shooter Sandwich is a hollowed out loaf of bread stuffed with layers of steak, cheese, onions, mushrooms, and flavoring. It is then squished under tremendous weight. The result is a thin sandwich with all sorts of flavor.

sous vide controller

The sous vide controller was warmed up and set to medium rare temperature, 57.8 Celsius.

all ingredients

The steak is in a bag, ready to be cooked in the immersion cooker (sous vide).  I wonder how all these ingredients are going to fit inside the loaf of bread.  The bread is a garlic loaf from the Ice House Pizza in Hope, Idaho.  I planned on making half a recipe so the food is roughly half of what might go into a normal sourdough loaf of bread.

I used a fillet mignon because I prefer the texture.  Most will want to use a rib eye or other more flavorful meat.  I placed the meat in the immersion cooker.  It will be ready in an hour.  I prepared all the other stuff.  I sauted the onion, garlic and mushrooms.  I added a pepper, not shown above.  I cooked the bacon and sliced the cheese.  I removed most of the bread from the loaf.

I am ready to stuff the bread.

bread hollowed out and ready

Here the loaf is hollowed out and the ingredients ready to be inserted.

steak added

First half the steak is added.  I applied horseradish to half and Worcester sauce to the other half.

bacon added to shooter sandwich

Bacon is layered on top and crushed a bit. 

cheese added to shooter sandwich

Cheese is next.  It seems like the loaf is already full!  The bacon will crush and there is some space around the steaks.

onion, garlic, and mushrooms added to shooter sandwich

The sauteed onion and garlic with mushrooms is next. 

more steak added to shooter sandwich

Finally the last layer of steak is added. The top of the bread is domed and so I added a bit more cheese and bacon on top of the steak.

close sandwich

It almost closes.

paper wrapped shoot sandwich

The bread is placed in butcher paper (freezer paper) and tied with twine.

foil wrapped shooter sandwich

Finally the bread is covered in foil to keep as much of the heat in as possible.

weight applied to shoot sandwich

I used a trash can full of water as a weight.  One end of the board is placed on a board to act as a hinge, keeping the board as level as possible.  The sandwich is placed on the ground, the board placed on top, and the trash can on top of the board.  The trash can is filled with water, weighting approximately 480 pounds.

squished shooter sandwich

The sandwich is already flattening out!  I will leave it like this for four hours.

close sandwich

The sandwich comes out looking like a weight that goes on the end of a barbell.  Here is the sandwich ready for the foil and paper to be removed.

paper wrapped shoot sandwich

The first slide.

foil wrapped shooter sandwich

This is a detail of the slice.

It was awful!  I could not help but wonder about all the effort leading to a tough, flavorless, meal.  All the ingredients were wonderful and would certainly make a nice meal if served separately.  It was warm and because all the juice squished out of it, solid and tough.  I was barely able to eat a quarter of it.

Several days later, I was researching the origins of the sandwich and looking at other recipes when I happened across one that suggested heating the finished sandwich in the oven for 15 minutes at 250F.  I tried heating a remaining quarter and found it was not half bad.  Still not a magnificent meal but acceptable.

The remaining half of the sandwich has been frozen, awaiting the arrival of my wife.  I will heat it and serve it.  I wonder what she will think?