Zhenya Ciurana - Official Author Blog

A long time ago, in one of my favourite cities far, far away...

I first tried this sandwich at the food court at Oslo City, a super-cool shopping centre downtown.  I dissected the sandwich on-site to figure out the ingredients.

OKi, from the inside of the sandwich, on a crusty baguette, working your way outward:

• Thin layer of mayonnaise
• Tiny cocktail shrimp [also pretentiously known as "crevettes" (French word for... shrimp)]
• A few crayfish
• Some bits of Norwegian or Alaskan king crab
• Sprinkle with lemon pepper and salt to taste
• Thin tomato slices
• Thin cucumber slices
• Thin hard boiled egg slices

Additional notes:

• It goes without saying:  shell all the crustaceans before you put them in the sandwich.  Someone made me something like this with whole shrimp.  Chitin is a great source of glucosamine for my finger joints after years of sparring and pounding the heavy bag but I prefer to not eat lots of it in my sandwiches.
• If you can get your hands on it, use grapeseed Vegenaise.  If you must use mayonnaise, please don't screw this up using some cheap crap.  Use something made with decent oil and few chemicals.  If you need a degree to read the ingredients list, don't use that mayonnaise.
• If you are in the Bay Area, use dungeness crab instead.
• If you are anywhere in Europe, eat as many Norwegian king crabs as you can.  They are a variety of Alaskan crab introduced there by the Russians in the 1970s... in an ocean where they have no natural predators so they are royally screwing things up for Norwegian fishermen.  Feel free to kill as many of these little bastards as you can to help restore the ecological balance along the fjords, the Barents sea, and surrounding ocean.

Let me know how your sandwiches turn out... cheers!