If At First You Don’t Cemita, Fry Fry Again

…Or, this probably would have gone better had I read Jim’s post before attempting to construct this sandwich.

When I saw the description for the Cemita, I thought it should be a slam dunk. The ingredients seemed accessible enough and the preparation appeared simple. Beautiful simplicity ahoy! However, after a few trials and errors, I’m still not sure I’ve gotten it quite right.

The bread: The Cemita is appropriately served on a Cemita roll, which according to Wikipedia is a brioche-like roll made with egg and covered in sesame seeds. I ventured to a local establishment called the International Bakery, a place that focuses on making delicious Mexican breads and pastries rather than much of an internet presence, hoping I’d find Cemita rolls-a-plenty. What I found were a number of rolls that seemed like they were close, but not exactly what I was looking for (and a whole lot of incredible looking pastries to distract me from my mission). With some guidance from one of the bakers I ended up with three different rolls (that I foolishly neglected to photograph before consuming), one of which was somewhat thin and had sesame seeds, two that seemed more fluffy with no sesame seeds, but which the baker suggested were the closest thing to Cemita rolls that they had.

I forgot to photograph the rolls I used for the sandwich, but I did take one of this magnificent bear claw, just for kicks.

The meat: My fondness of beef is no secret, so it’ll come as no surprise that I decided to take a crack at beef milanesa for the protein. Beef milanesa is essentially a hunk of beef, pounded thin, then battered and fried. I made three attempts, once with an eye of round cut that I didn’t pound nearly thinly enough, and twice with skirt steak. Results were mixed, as you’ll see.

The rest: Avocado and onion. No explanation needed. Red sauce. Easy enough. The grocery store down the street from the aforementioned International Bakery is well known for their delicious salsa roja, a product which quantities they sell, literally, buckets of every day. The cheese, according to Wikipedia, is “panela, bland white cheese with the consistency of fresh mozzarella. Quesillo, a Mexican string cheese, is also used.” What I managed to find was “Nuestra Queso, Oaxaca String Cheese.” That’ll do. The other ingredient mentioned is an herb called papalo, which is apparently somewhere between cilantro and arugala on the flavor spectrum. Alas, I wasn’t able to track any down (unsurprisingly, as it does seem to be out of season), but decided that there was enough cilantro in the salsa to call it good.

The cost for 10 oz. of homemade salsa. That’ll do just fine, Jacobo’s Grocery.

Attempt #1: I pounded the eye of round as thinly as I could manage without causing too much of a ruckus for my downstairs neighbor (spoiler alert, this would not be thin enough). In hindsight, it would have likely been a better move to simply split the thing lengthwise. But here we are. I breaded it with a pretty basic egg wash/seasoned bread crumb combo, and dropped it into a frying pan filled with enough canola oil to just barely cover the meat. I fried it until the breading was a nice golden brown. I went for the gold and grabbed the sesame-seeded roll and assembled a sandwich.

The build

The split

As I cut it in half for the photo op, I came to the realization that this may not have all come together as intended, as the meat took a bit of effort to cut through. That’s not a good sign for something I’m hoping to eat with my hands. My apprehension, it turned out, was not misguided, as the meat was not thin or tender enough to serve well as a sandwich filling. It only took a few bites for my sandwich to come apart at the seams.

And the crumble

This one ended up being consumed by way of sandwich components speared by fork.

This is not a sandwich.

Attempt #2: For the following attempts, I used a nice, already-thin skirt steak, which I pounded just enough to make sure it was pretty uniform. The original steak was fairly sizable from a strictly length x width standpoint, so I cut it into a few sandwich-appropriate sized pieces. One of which I would use as a control, to try to gauge the sandwich-edibility throughout the cooking process. I trimmed some of the fat off the steak, and then proceeded with the same egg wash/bread crumb treatment as with the first attempt. I fried the steak, and the breading browned up very quickly, so quickly that I feared if I left it in the oil much longer, it would burn to a carbon-y crisp. However, I also feared that with such a short fry time that the steak would again end up being very tough, especially since I’m working with a cut with a fair amount of connective material. I cut into my test portion, which confirmed by concerns. I improvised, and threw my milanesa in the oven, in an attempt to impose a slower cook. The breading did end up a bit toastier than I’d have liked, but the meat did end up noticably more tender, and I was also afforded the opportunity to melt the cheese over the milanesa in the oven. Cemita number two worked much better as a sandwich. The meat was still tougher than I’d like, but the thing didn’t crumble to pieces this time.

Not too shabby.

Attempt #3: I decided that in a last-ditch effort to make the meat as handheld meal-friendly as possible, I’d slice it. This is decidedly less than traditional, but worth a shot for the sake of the experiment. The result was much better, while there were still bits of meat that were tough and a little chewy, biting into those bits didn’t result in the sandwich fillings all being yanked out in one fell swoop. This was a downright decent sandwich.

Sliced meat

Sliced meat on sandwich.

The only other thing I’d change would be perhaps finding a salsa that’s slightly less sweet than the one I used. Some acid or perhaps smoky paprika may have done wonders.

I’m fairly certain, especially given the context of the magnificent looking Cemita that Jim was able to procure through a professional, that I’ve yet to make a proper Cemita. Even if I have, I’ve definitely yet to make a great Cemita. But the idea is simple enough, the ingredients are accessible enough, and the flavors are good enough that it’ll be worth it to keep trying.

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