Home › Fish › Pimento Sandwich
Pimento Sandwich
Grind two small cans of pimentos with two cakes of Neufchatel cheese, and season with a little salt. If the mixture is too dry add a little oil of pimentos. Spread on thin slices of lightly buttered white bread. Place two together and cut in fancy shapes.
A tea-sandwich filling of the early 1900s, when canned Spanish pimientos and factory-made Neufchâtel were both novelties. The whole thing hinges on moisture control: drained peppers and soft cheese, worked to a paste that spreads without tearing thin bread.
- Two cakes of NeufchatelAmerican Neufchâtel cakes were commonly of about 3 oz in this period, so probably something like 6 oz in all; today the cheese is usually sold in 8 oz blocks instead. It is a fresh soft cheese, closer to a slightly leaner cream cheese than to the French Neufchâtel; plain cream cheese substitutes directly.
- Two small cans of pimentosSmall cans of the period were commonly around 4 oz, which would give roughly 8 oz of peppers to some 6 oz of cheese, a ratio that reads pepper-heavy by modern taste. A 7 oz jar of roasted pimientos is a reasonable current equivalent, and using less makes a firmer, more spreadable paste.
- Drain the peppers firstCanned pimientos carry a great deal of liquid, and any of it that goes into the bowl will soak through thin bread within an hour. Press them in a sieve, then blot on paper towels before grinding.
- "Oil of pimentos"Most likely the oil the peppers were packed in rather than a flavouring extract, though the phrase is ambiguous. Since pimientos are now usually packed in brine or their own juice, use a teaspoon of mild olive oil to loosen the mixture if it seizes up.
- GrindA hand meat grinder was the tool intended. A food processor does it in seconds, but pulse rather than run it, or the peppers liquefy and you are back to a wet filling.
- Bread and cuttingThin-sliced white bread, a day old, cuts cleanly; fresh bread compresses. Butter the slices right to the edges before spreading — the thin fat layer is what keeps the filling from wetting the crumb.
- Yield and holdingEnough for about 16 to 20 small tea sandwiches. The filling keeps three or four days refrigerated, but assemble no more than a couple of hours before serving and cover with a damp cloth.
Pimiento peppers reached American kitchens in quantity in the 1890s, imported from Spain in small tins, and by the 1910s were being grown and canned in Georgia. Neufchâtel, meanwhile, had been made commercially in New York State since the 1870s and was sold in exactly the small cakes this recipe calls for. The pairing of the two is generally traced to Northern magazine and cookbook writing of this period, where it was presented as a dainty, faintly exotic filling for club luncheons and tea trays — the reverse of its later reputation. Only after Southern canneries made pimientos cheap and processed cheese made the spread shelf-stable did pimento cheese settle into its present identity as a Southern staple. Recipes like this one, with its fancy-cut shapes and thin buttered white bread, catch the dish at its brief moment as a fashionable novelty.