The Perfect Christmas Sanga

It’s a family tradition to buy a good loaf of sourdough on Christmas eve, ready to make sandwiches with all the Christmas lunch leftovers the following day. This sandwich typically features leftover roast turkey (but can more easily be made with chicken), bread stuffing, brie, cranberry sauce, and a zingy Brussels sprout slaw.  It is essential to stuff this sanga with as much as you physically can, and make sure to use good brie, good bread and good butter.  

This recipe can be used if you already have leftovers on hand, or you can follow below to create all of the components specifically for this.   

Serves four  

Ingredients:

 Simple roast chicken  

• 1.5kg whole chicken  
• Bunch of sage leaves 
• Olive oil  
• Salt  
• 1 cup vegetable or chicken stock 
• ½ cup dry white wine 

Bread stuffing 

• 250g white bread - your standard white sliced bread is perfect for this  
• 1 Pink Lady Apple 
• 1 white onion  
• 100g unsalted butter, melted  

Brussels Sprout slaw  

• 3 egg yolks  
• ½ tsp white wine vinegar 
• 125ml vegetable oil  
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard 
• Handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped  
• 1 tbsp capers, roughly chopped  
• 180g Brussels sprouts, shredded 

Everything else  

• Cranberry sauce 
• Triple cream Brie  
• Unsalted butter, room temp (for bread spreadin’)  
• Sourdough loaf , cut into 8 even slices 

Method:  

 Simple roast chicken   

• Preheat oven to 190c  
• Rinse the chicken and pat completely dry with kitchen paper. Allow the chicken to come to room temperature.  
• Rub the chicken all over in olive oil and sprinkle with good, flakey salt.  
• Stuff the inside of the chicken with sage leaves and tie the legs together with cooking string.  
• Place the chicken in a deep roasting dish, pour the stock and wine into the bottom of the dish and cook for approx 1hr10m or until the internal temperature reads 75c.  
• Cover with al-foil and leave to rest for 30 minutes before using.  

Bread stuffing 

• In a food processor one by one, blitz the bread, apple and onion until you have a mix of breadcrumbs and finely chopped fruit and veg.  
• Combine all in a bowl and drizzle in the melted butter. Season well with salt and toss to combine.  
• Spread out on a baking tray and cook for 30 minutes in the same oven as the chicken (190c).  

Brussels Sprout Slaw 

• Whisk the egg yolks with the vinegar, then slow drizzle in the vegetable oil while whisking continuously to make your mayonnaise.  
• Add a pinch of salt and some black pepper, the capers, parsley and Dijon mustard and whisk to combine.  
• Fold in the shredded Brussels sprouts.  

Building the sanga 

• Butter one side of a slice of sourdough 
• Next add two slices of Brie  
• Add a dollop of cranberry sauce and spread over the Brie 
• Top with roast chicken pieces  
• Add stuffing atop of the chicken  
• Finally add a mound of Brussels Sprout slaw  
• Press the other slice of sourdough firmly down on top of the slaw, cut in half and enjoy.  

This recipe was created by Gabriella from @_noregrettispaghetti, check out Gabriella's instagram page here or website here. 

Gabriella is a Londoner born to Armenian/Canadian parents, with a love of all things Italian, especially pasta. She fell in love with food between the pages of her mum’s Reader’s Digest cookbooks, and at the table of her grandmother’s Cypriot kitchen, watching dolma be rolled and lahmajun made. 

When she’s not making her favourite carb, she can be found sharing some of her recipes on her blog, drinking far too much coffee, or hanging out with her dog, Gordon.