BLT Sandwich: the quick and easy recipe

Cut the bread slices approximately 1.5 cm thick. Toast the bread to the point of being crunchy but not too dry. 

Cut the chives into small pieces. Mash the cheese with a spoon to make it spreadable, add the chives and mix thoroughly. 

Cut the tomatoes, clean the cucumbers and cut them into slices.

Place the bacon slices in a preheated non-stick frying pan and gently fry them on both sides until crisp. Then place the bacon slices on a sheet of absorbent paper to remove any excess fat and preserve their crispness.  

Spread the chive-flavoured cheese on two slices of the toasted bread. Take the slice of bread without cheese and place it on the serving dish as a base. Now add the crisp bacon and cucumber, before covering with one of the slices spread with cheese. Add the tomato slices and lettuce. Finally top with the other slice of bread spread with cream cheese. 

Useful tips and interesting facts

To make an excellent BLT Sandwich use a sandwich loaf of craft production. Packaged ready-sliced bread, no matter how good, contains food preservatives which alter the delicate flavour of this sandwich.  For perfectly chopped chives, use kitchen scissors to cut the strands. The neat cut of the scissor blades prevents this delicate herb from oxidizing and preserves its intense green colour and crispness. Instead, always use a saw edge knife to cut tomatoes.  In time, the acidic juice of tomatoes can ruin the smooth blades of your knives and, furthermore, a saw edge knife enables you to cut through the smooth firm skin of a ripe tomato with greater precision.  
 

Variants

There are countless variants on the BLT Sandwich theme.  You could add vegetable ingredients such as olives, gherkins and red onion rings or various other ingredients such as smoked salmon or chicken breast cut into fine slices. This sandwich is an excellent way  to use up leftovers: fill it with grilled vegetables or with a salad of boiled chicken you may have used to make an excellent stock. Try this recipe with wholegrain, multigrain or rye bread instead of the usual white loaf.