Recently, I threw a holiday dinner party and served what I thought to be a traditional holiday menu: roast beef with jus, mini Yorkshire puddings, dauphin gratinee (a.k.a. scalloped potatoes), mushrooms cooked with chestnuts and roasted brussels sprouts. I splurged on a good cut of beef – a New York strip roast. When the dishes and empty wine bottles were cleared I found that, happily, there was a good-sized chunk of it left.  As planned.

Leftover roast beef, like leftover turkey, makes great sandwiches. But there are sandwiches and there are, you know, sandwiches.  My chunk of leftover beef was not  some random supermarket roast. The steer it once walked around in had been raised on a small nearby farm. Its meat had been butchered with love at Marlow and Daughters, standard-bearers of the Brooklyn artisanal food scene. It was tender and deeply flavorful, cooked just right. A sandwich made from beef this good would need something more than a slather of mayo and a slice of rye bread.

What kind of sandwich could honor such noble beef? To start with, how about adding some veggies. They’ll add contrast to the flavor and texture, stretch the leftover beef, and maybe contribute some measure of healthfulness. It would need to be something hearty to stand up to the flavor and bite of the beef: kale. I wanted mushrooms too, because they pair so perfectly with beef.  The final plan, then: braise the kale with the mushrooms and some onion in the leftover roast beef jus. Stir in thin slices of the beef just long enough to warm them – being careful not to allow them to cook any further. Pile this juicy mixture onto some thick slices of grilled bread. Top with cheese and give it a quick run under the broiler. Serve open-faced. Delicious.

That’s a sandwich for a special occasion though. I don’t expect to have leftovers from a top-quality cut of roast beef lying around very often? Nor  homemade roast beef jus for braising liquid? There should be a every-day version of this sandwich too. It’d need to use less extraordinary ingredients: sliced roast beef from the supermarket deli, say, and plain ol’ beef stock. The flavor wouldn’t match the Holiday Dinner Party Leftovers version, but then I wouldn’t have to wait until my next diner party to enjoy it.

Here’s a Steak Sandwich Recipe

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