Leftover Corned Beef- Make A Reuben Sandwich

Reuben

I am sure most of you know what a Reuben Sandwich is, corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese, thousand island or Russian dressing on rye bread grilled. It’s a decadently delicious sandwich and a fabulous way to use up corned beef. I didn’t have rye bread but I did have a little less than half a loaf left of my sour dough bread, happened to have sauerkraut, made some thousand island dressing, I did run to the deli and get some swiss cheese. I hadn’t had one of these sandwiches in a very long time and it was a real treat. They are delicious. Here is a bit of Reuben trivia straight from wikipedia:

Reuben Kulakofsky: Omaha, Nebraska

One account holds that Reuben Kulakofsky (sometimes spelled Reubin, or the last name shortened to Kay), a Lithuanian-born grocer residing in Omaha, Nebraska, was the inventor perhaps as part of a group effort by members of Kulakofsky’s weekly poker game held in the Blackstone Hotel from around 1920 through 1935. The participants, who nicknamed themselves “the committee”, included the hotel’s owner, Charles Schimmel. The sandwich first gained local fame when Schimmel put it on the Blackstone’s lunch menu, and its fame spread when a former employee of the hotel won a national contest with the recipe.  In Omaha, March 14 was proclaimed as Reuben Sandwich Day.

Reuben’s Delicatessen: New York City

• Another account holds that the Reuben’s creator was Arnold Reuben, the German owner of the famed yet defunct Reuben’s Delicatessen in New York City who according to an interview withCraig Claiborne invented the “Reuben special” around 1914.  The earliest references in print to the sandwich are New York–based but that is not conclusive evidence, though the fact that the earliest, from a 1926 edition of Theatre Magazine, references a “Reuben special”, does seem to take its cue from Arnold Reuben’s menu.

• A variation of the above account is related by Bernard Sobel in his book, Broadway Heartbeat: Memoirs of a Press Agent, which claims that the sandwich was an extemporaneous creation forMarjorie Rambeau inaugurated when the famed Broadway actress visited the Reuben’s Delicatessen one night when the cupboards were particularly bare.

• Some sources name the actress in the above account as Annette Seelos, not Marjorie Rambeau, while noting that the original “Reuben special” sandwich did not contain corned beef or sauerkraut and was not grilled; still other versions give credit to Alfred Scheuing, Reuben’s chef, and say he created the sandwich for Reuben’s son, Arnold Jr., in the 1930s.

The fixings

The thousand island dressing was simple”

Mayonaise

ketchup

cornichon minced

2 mustards, dijon and deli (a little of each)

Here is how I make the sandwich. Butter one side of each slice of bread. Spread some thousand island dressing on each side, now you layer, first swiss cheese, then corned beef, then sauerkraut and then another slice of swiss. Grill one side, flip then grill the other side. I like to press it down a little to flatten kind of like a panini. Serve straight from the grill with some pickles.