Filling groovy: putting life back into the sandwich

An Edinburgh catering firm has recently won a top British award for their sandwiches. But how would they put the zest back into the humble homemade sarnie?

• Sandwiches needn't be boring as Robbie Gleave, above left, is proving at Beetroot Blue

I'VE GOT a question: can you name a food other than the sandwich of which we eat so much and yet over which we take so little care? I can't. In Britain we eat more than 11.5 billion sandwiches each year – and more than half of them are made and eaten at home, according to the British Sandwich Association.

Were we making somewhere in the region of six billion portions of curry, or six billion pies, we'd probably take the time to make sure that it wasn't always chicken curry or always steak pie. That might get a bit boring. Yet with sandwiches we don't seem to care.

When we make them at home, we use the same old ingredients (probably cheese and ham) and whatever bread we've got lying at the back of the bread bin. A scrape of spread, a slice of cheddar, a slurp of pickle, cut it in half, wrap it in foil and sling it in your bags. It's not exactly thoughtful food preparation, is it?

"Sandwiches are supposed to be convenient, which means they're supposed to be quick and often that means doing what you always do," says Kirsty Hepburn, development manager of Beetroot Blue, an Edinburgh catering firm that currently holds the title of Workplace Sandwich Provider of the Year 2011, bestowed at the recent Sammies, the British Sandwich Industry Awards. "But if you want to keep enjoying the sandwiches you make you've got to have a change. The trick is to look in the cupboard and work with what you've got.

"When I open my fridge there's one shelf that's covered in jars – chutneys and pickles, pesto, sundried tomatoes, half a jar of olives – all sorts of stuff. That's ideal for sandwiches."

Sitting with Hepburn and Robbie Gleave, the executive development chef of Beetroot Blue – who reached the final of Sandwich Designer of the Year at the Sammies – it's clear that however sloppy the vast majority of us are about sandwiches, these two take them very seriously indeed. It's all about balancing texture and taste, respecting ingredients and calculating the "carrier filling ratio".

What a terrible audience to which to have to make the following confession: I'm not a fan of sandwiches. Sorry, but there it is. The ones I make are boring and the ones I buy are always disappointing. Maybe not always, but nine times out of ten. Soggy bread, tasteless fillings, odd combinations.

I realise saying this to Hepburn and Gleave is like mentioning to Alex Ferguson I don't really think much of the game that involves punting a ball up a park, but Hepburn and Gleave take it on the chin. It turns out Gleave is not only a celebrated sandwich designer, he is a man with several philosophies about them, so he has no problem coming up with one for me.

"The thing is, anything goes," he says. "If you're not a fan of the sandwich then you might want to ditch the bread and have a couple of slices of ham with some plum chutney and a handful of rocket. That's OK."

For Gleave there is no rulebook. It's about trying things out, finding

combinations that work for you. And why not? After all, presumably no-one raised a complaint about it never having been done before when the ancient Jewish sage Hillel the Elder popped some meat from the Paschal lamb and some bitter herbs (for a bit of colour, presumably) between two pieces of matzah, making one of the first sandwiches.

Nor did anyone cry foul when in 1762, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich called for "cuts of beef" to be placed between two slices of toasted bread so that he didn't have to stop gambling or get his cards greasy while he munched. Actually, his official biographer did reject the veracity of that particular origin story, but the myth – that when others saw what the aristo was scoffing, they began to order "the same as Sandwich" which soon begat the name – is just too good to let go.

And no matter the disputes about who started it, the sandwich is a major success story. Research by the British Sandwich Association shows that in 2010 we paid more than 6billion for sandwiches from retail or catering outlets. The UK sandwich industry employs more than the UK agriculture industry – 300,000 people have jobs in the commercial sandwich sector.

Still, the issue at hand is the sarnies we make at home. Why are they so dull? The top filling when it comes to sandwiches we buy when we're out and about is chicken. Chicken is a versatile ingredient – curry it, serve it with bacon, or with lemon. It's nice with salad and delicious with cheese. But when it comes to the ones we make at home, out goes chicken and in come ham and cheese. Not together, mind, it's usually ham or cheese. My tastebuds have slipped into a coma just thinking about it. It's not that there's anything wrong with those two old faithfuls per se, but it's hardly excitement central is it?

Not that I want to be too harsh. In Scotland we might have a reputation for our incredible tolerance for carbohydrate combinations (macaroni pie on a roll, anyone?) but we're not the worst. Sandwiches have plenty of otherwise culinary competents in a fix. Consider the French. They might bake beautiful bread and make exquisite cheeses, but when it comes to le sandwich, they are clueless. Processed white bread topped with a slice of processed cheese is what you'll usually get if you ask for one.

So how do we get it right?

According to Gleave, rule one of making sandwiches that actually taste good is to fill it with the kind of food that you usually eat. Don't buy processed meats and sandwich spreads, but use the real stuff that you've probably already got lurking in the fridge. Whatever you are happy to put on your plate, you should be happy to put on a piece.

And he's a man of his word. In the Beetroot Blue kitchen, a hive of activity tucked down a sidestreet in Leith, Gleave lines up some Sunday lunch leftovers to demonstrate how to make a delicious sandwich.

There's roast beef, some leftover parsnips that have gone sweet and rubbery, a few Yorkshire puddings and a bowl of what turns out to be Bovril-flavoured mayonnaise, made by simply mixing the two together. A few green leaves take care of the fresh filling and add a splash of colour and then there's a seeded brown roll – supermarket bought, no homebaking required – in which the whole lot will go.

Watching Gleave make a sandwich is not, I must say, quite like what happens in my kitchen. As you'd expect from a man who started his career in The Ritz, he's got "cheffy" ways. He makes slices of rare roast beef crumple gently on to the bread rather than what I might do, which is lay two slices flat and uninterestingly on my bread. And his technique is not just showing off – there is method in what he's doing.

"It's about creating an interesting texture in your mouth," he says. "You want the flavours of the filling to combine so that in each bite you get the full effect."

So how does it work?

Rule two is don't be stingy. Both bits of bread must be buttered and spreads must be pushed to the very edges. You don't have to use a lot of butter – it definitely should not be a quarter-inch thick if you're thinking about your arteries – but if it's on both top and bottom it acts as a protective barrier so that any squishy fillings don't just soak straight into the bread to make it soggy and unpleasant. There should be plenty of filling so that you never end up with just a mouthful of bread – that really isn't the point.

And finally, rule three is think about texture. If every ingredient is of the same consistency then each bite will feel the same. Add some crunch, mix it up and it'll keep things more interesting. According to Gleave, raw veg works a treat (grate some sweet potato or slice some red cabbage finely) and nuts and seeds offer good crunch too.

And if it's a question of time – I struggle to do much more than make a coffee before I leave the house in the morning – then remember preparation is all. Make it the night before, wrap it up and leave it. The flavours will get a chance to mix and mingle and it'll taste even better.

Times are tight and our tastebuds deserve better. I think we should reconsider our approach to the humble homemade sarnie.