Bacon and Salmon Cream Cheese Sandwich

A few months ago on a trip to Dubai I discovered an ingredient which seemed like a potential candidate for my armoury of spreads and flavourings – salmon cream cheese. Now I’m not a huge fan of cream cheese; except when it’s spread over toasted bagels and topped with salmon, which is why this combination piqued my interest.

This pink, slightly glutinous spread has, since it’s now easily available in gourmet stores, adorned many a breakfast toast. Not wanting to dilute its flavours with other ingredients I refrained from using it as a component of my sandwiches. That was until I serendipitously discovered that it combined beautifully with sliced apples. Another ingredient that has been historically paired with apple is pork (roast pig with apple in mouth, remember) and the sandwich became a happy threesome.

Since it lacked a bit of texture, and colour, I played around with different kinds of salad greens finally settling on another favourite: arugula. The menage a quatre works fabulously, making it one of my simplest gourmet sandwiches

A couple of things I should point out about choosing the ingredients of the sandwich:

Doesn’t do well with brown or multi-grain bread. Stick to plain white or foccacia.
Use only a sweet, crisp apple variety; don’t go with a soft apple or one that’s too tart.
If you can’t find arugula skip the greens, you need the pepperiness of arugula to make this work.
Plain cream cheese works; not so well, but it does.
Since I’m trying to regain my sylph-like figure I’ve suggested 2 bacon rashers, if you have no such constraints feel free to double the quantity.

INGREDIENTS
2 slices white bread
salmon cream cheese
2 rashers bacon, preferably streaky
2-3 thin slices of apple, cut along the length
a few arugula leaves
a pinch of pepper
METHOD
Fry the bacon rashers till brown and crisp.
Meanwhile toast the bread very lightly.
Once the bacon is done, drain on absorbent tissue paper.
Spread a generous amount of the salmon cream cheese on both slices of the bread.
Arrange the rocket leaves, followed by the apple and finally the bacon on one slice of bread.
Top with the second slice.
Cut into two triangles.