I bloody hate rubbish sandwiches. Particularly those sweaty little things in a triangular plastic box that are both cold and miserable (very British I suppose). When the weekend comes, I demand a decent sarnie.

There’s loads I love, but I really dig salt beef, and in particular it’s butch cousin pastrami. Not a big deal in the UK, this peppery meat with it’s ruby flesh it’s utterly moreish and wonderfully carnivorous. So I fancied some today.

To make it as perfect as I could, I prepared ahead and made some bread too. Quite a bubbly and crusty one, so plenty of mouth feel. Then I added a little butter to each open side to prevent the bread getting soggy. I mixed some English mustard with a little mayonnaise to get that creamy colour, and slapped that most American of sandwich ingredients on top: slices of crunchy, sweet pickle. (Or ‘gherkin’ if we’re going to be British about it). Then waves of tasty meat.

There’s so much flavour going on here, it’s marvellous. Chewy bread, crunchy gherkin, the tang of mustard and tear of meat… that’s a sandwich.