Along with the po boy, the muffuletta is one of NOLA’s famous sandwiches on the run. The muffuletta, an Italian stack of meats and cheeses, has been around for over a century and represents everything great about the city’s diversity. The fact is, while we associate many French, Spanish, Creole and Acadian flavors with New Orleans, Sicilian immigrants have had a large hand in the formation of the city’s food culture.
Likely named after its mitten-like bread, the muffuletta’s roots lie firmly in the Italian shops that surrounded the city’s French Market back in the day. Central Grocery on Decatur street, just a few steps away from the Shambles of the once thriving, now touristic, market, sells a classic version of the sandwich. The shop creates its muffulettas on large round seeded rolls and fills them with Italian meat, cheese and, most important, olive salad. Once filled, the round rolls are quartered and sold in hefty individual portions.
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The key to the greatness of this New Orleans sandwich is its olive salad. Most Italian-American sandwiches, like heroes, hoagies and grinders, use oil and vinegar to dress stacked meats, cheeses and vegetables. In the muffuletta, olive salad performs double duty by providing a vegetal bite while, at the same time, dressing and seasoning the sandwich. This difference in construction is what makes the muffuletta special.
While Central Grocery’s muffuletta is good, there are other New Orleans muffulettas worth trying. A few blocks away, at the bar Napoleon House, muffulettas are served warm with melted cheese. Nearby in the Warehouse Disctict, Chef Donald Link’s Cochon Butcher fills its muffulettas with charcuterie made by in-house butchers plus the obligatory provolone and olive salad.
Ok, you probably don’t live in New Orleans and neither do we. And, like us, you probably don’t have access to round Italian muffuletta bread. But there’s no rule that says muffuletta sandwiches have to be round and that you can’t use another bread. Since the square-shaped focaccia we buy is as good, if not better, than some of the round Italian bread sold in NOLA, it hit us – we could should attempt to recreate the sandwich’s basic framework at home.
We formulated a logical plan that fit our lifestyle. First, we created a large muffuletta with focaccia and filled it with all the necessary ingredients. We then sliced it into individual, party-sized servings. Success! Our mini muffuletta sandwiches channeled New Orleans in every tasty bite.
