Alongside gumbo, hush puppies, and a slew of other beloved Cajun dishes, the po’ boy is a Louisiana staple. Whether you make yours with roast beef or New Orleans’ classic fried shrimp, the sandwich generally pairs your choice of a meat or seafood filling with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mayonnaise. Those ingredients are then piled between layers of soft bread — a combination that often proves messy, with the tendency to squish and fall apart after just one bite. To combat this conundrum, celebrity chef Alton Brown recommends one simple fix: Tear out some of your bread’s excess interior to create more room for your filling.
In his recipe for an oyster po’ boy sandwich, Brown indeed acknowledges that po’ boys tend to be on the sloppier end. Specifically, it’s the mayonnaise-drenched lettuce, which Brown turns into a flavorful and delicious slaw, that’s most likely to ooze out of your bread’s parameters. Rather than do away with that texture and the moisture it adds alongside his oysters, Brown sacrifices just a little bit of his bread, allowing his filling to shine.
As for how, exactly, Brown dissects his sandwich? All it takes is a little wear and tear — and a soft roll of crusty bread.
Tear out a little or a lot of the bready interior of your next po’ boy sandwich
Many po’ boy recipes follow New Orleans tradition and take full advantage of the textural composition of French bread. The city, after all, embraces all kinds of French influences, whether in cuisine or architecture, so the bread style is a tried-and-true success. That’s because French breads tend to be well-balanced, with the ultra-fluffiness of a good roll and the structural integrity of a well-baked crust. It’s therefore relatively easy to heed Brown’s advice and use your fingers to chip away at the bread’s interior. This won’t make your roll fall apart but will instead shrink it just enough to contain your oysters.
Granted, this process isn’t an exact science, so you can pull out as much — or as little — bread as you’d like. Just make sure to carve out enough of an indent for your slaw to nestle perfectly inside. Even with this added step, you’ll likely still experience some spillage of ingredients. But it will cut down on the mess.
That’s not to say you have to use French rolls, either. Alton Brown, for instance, highlights banh mi bread, which similarly pairs a light, soft carb with a crusty chew. The Vietnamese bread is well-versed in upholding a bahn mi’s multitude of ingredients, so a po’ boy is a natural — and delicious — next step.
