“Deep and meaty but also super bright with veg, Vietnamese bánh mì are perfectly balanced,” writes Scott Clark who with Betsy Andrews wrote Coastal: 130 Recipes from a California Road Trip, a fun cookbook about his adventures owning Dad’s Luncheonette, a historic train caboose turned restaurant on California’s narrow winding Highway 1, the coastal two-lane road traversing the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean in Half Moon Bay.
“They just do all the things you want in a sandwich,” continues Clark, who loves the food scene in this region of California. “I make a loose, ground pork sausage for my riff. It gives me a sausage roll vibe, and sausage rolls are near and dear to my East Coast heart. Generally, the carrots are vinegar-pickled on bánh mì, but an overnight lime bath really punches them up. Serrano chile and a gingery mustard give it a kick, while fish sauce brings the funk. Then you load up your sandos with herbs and vegetables. It’s a full-on drippy, multi-napkin meal. And that’s what we want. That’s the answer.”
Peppery Sausage Bánh Mì
Time: 30 minutes active; overnight total
Yield: 3 monster or 4 reasonably sized sandwiches
Special Gear: Meat grinder, if using
Ingredients:
Pickled Carrots
- 2 carrots, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks
- 1/2 serrano chile, cut into thin rings
- Fresh lime juice to cover (from 3 or 4 limes)
Sausage
- 4 ounces slab bacon
- 1 pound ground pork
- 1 ½ tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
- 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
- 2 teaspoons grated garlic
- 2 teaspoons freshly ground white pepper
- 1 ½ teaspoons toasted sesame oil
Ginger Mustard
- 1/2 cup Pickled Mustard Seeds (recipe below)
- 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
Sandwiches
- 1 baguette, split lengthwise
- 12 crisp, just-washed romaine leaves
- Half a cucumber, cut into thin matchsticks
- 1 bunch fresh cilantro, tough stems removed
To make the pickled carrots: In a medium bowl, mix the carrots and serrano, then add enough lime juice to cover them. Put the veg in the fridge to marinate overnight. They’ll keep, in the fridge in an airtight container, for up to 1 week.
To make the sausage: Using a medium die on your meat grinder, or pulsing in a food processor, grind the bacon. Put the bacon in a medium bowl, add the pork, fish sauce, lime juice, ginger, garlic, and pepper, and use your hands to mix everything together until it’s well combined. Cover it and stow it in the fridge to marinate for at least 1 hour and up to overnight. In a 9 in [23 cm] cast-iron pan over high heat, heat the sesame oil until it’s smoking. Add the sausage mixture, knock the heat down to medium-high, and fry it, stirring and breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until all the liquid has released and it’s well-seared and crumbly, 10 to 12 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the sausage to a medium bowl.
To make the ginger mustard: In a blender or a food processor, combine the pickled mustard seeds and ginger and blitz them together for 30 seconds.
To make the sandwiches: Generously smear the ginger mustard on the cut sides of the baguette. Pile the sausage on the bottom half of the baguette, then top it with the romaine leaves, cucumber matchsticks, a generous amount of pickled carrots, and a heaping pile of cilantro. Cut into three or four pieces and serve.
Pickled Mustard Seeds
Good stadium mustard is tangy and spicy but a little sweet and earthy too. With all that going on, it’s addictive. That’s what you get with these pickled seeds. They make so many foods that much better: runny eggs, rare steak, roasted marrowbones. Whole pickled mustard seeds slammed on a buttery bun with a sausage right off the grill? Boom! That is it.
Time: 30 minutes active; 2 days total
Yield: 2 cups
1 cup whole yellow mustard seeds
1 cup champagne, white balsamic, or apple cider vinegar
1 cup g] packed dark brown sugar
1 Tablespoon kosher salt 4 bay leaves
Rinse the mustard seeds in a fine-mesh strainer until the water runs clear. Transfer them to a medium bowl, cover them with 2 cups of cold water, and leave them on the countertop to steep overnight.
In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, simmer the remaining ingredients, along with ½ cup of water, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Drain the seeds, then add them to the saucepan and bring them to a boil. Knock the heat down to a rumbling simmer and cook for 20 minutes. The seeds will plump. Let the mixture cool to room temperature, then pour into a jar, screw on the lid, and chill for 24 hours before using. The seeds will keep, in the fridge, for at least 1 month, and they only get better with time.
Excerpted from Coastal: 130 Recipes from a California Road Trip by Scott Clark with Betsy Andrews, © 2025. Published by Chronicle Books. Photographs © Cheyenne Ellis.
