How to make the ultimate Christmas leftover sandwich according to the King of Sandwiches, Max Halley

There’s a lot of pressure when it comes to mastering the big Christmas Day meal. But this year we invite you to chill out. Who cares if the turkey was dry. If the roasters were a bit meh. If the gravy lacked integrity. Because you’ve always got Boxing Day to nail it. Aka the day that, for buffet lovers like myself, the real feast begins. The day when no one stands on ceremony, and a crazed sample sale attitude washes over everyone as they elbow their way to the table to create a plate of leftovers so chaotically beautiful it belongs in the Tate Modern. And so the great leftovers sandwich assembly begins.

But how do you make the ultimate Christmas leftovers sandwich? How do you make every bite count? We called on Max Halley, owner of north London’s legendary Max’s Sandwich Shop and undisputed (seriously, don’t dispute me on this) King of the Sanger to find out how to get it right. 

Trust in Max. Trust in the process. And most importantly, trust in the volume of mayonnaise he recommends... 

‘Now more than ever, throwing stuff away is just not acceptable,’ says Max. ‘And I believe that one of the core causes of wastefulness, especially in a food context, is that most people don’t want the same thing two days in a row. What the Christmas leftover sandwich does is allow us to eat the same thing in a completely different manner. That is fundamentally lovely.

‘If your Christmas lunch is all about turkey, you’ll probably only have a little bit of bird left the day after. And so it ends up that maybe you’ve got loads of roasted potatoes, loads of vegetables left that you can chop up and fry into a patty – shred up raw brussels sprouts and add them. That ends up forming the core part of your sandwich and therefore you’re allowing other bits to shine.’

‘I think mayonnaise is as important to a sandwich as the bread. It is the great bringer of moisture and the ultimate flavour vehicle, as far as I’m concerned. I consider mayonnaise so important in a sandwich that I don’t consider it a condiment at all. I just consider it a part of the sandwich. Like bread. 

‘Mayonnaise is so important because it makes everything juicy. Let’s say that in your Boxing Day sandwich, you want English mustard, right? Have you ever tried evenly spreading English mustard on anything dry? Nightmare, mate. You’ve just got a corner of really punchy mustard in one bit. But slather it on top of mayonnaise, and the whole thing becomes much easier to control.  

‘What I’m looking for in a sandwich is having everything in every bite. It’s why the idea of cherry tomatoes in sandwiches fills me with rage. Why would you want a thing where one bite has cherry tomato in it and another bite doesn’t have any cherry tomato in it? I can’t understand that structurally.’

‘In terms of a traditional sandwich, there’s nothing worse than sourdough. Because the fermentation of sourdough is slow, large pockets of carbon dioxide build and you end up with those massive bubbles.

Now, those massive bubbles are spaces where you will not be able to put any mayonnaise, so instead, what you are looking for is a tight-crumb bread with crust everywhere. That crust means the sandwich as a whole can have a higher moisture content without falling apart and losing its structural integrity, which will happen with sliced bread. You want something that can soak up loads of juice without falling apart. Like those little half ciabattas – they’re great.’

‘I would say that no ingredient is key. But contrast is key. If you’ve got sweet stuff, make sure you have sour stuff. If you’ve got soft stuff, make sure you’ve got crunch. If you’ve got cold things, make sure there are hot things. It’s the balance of the things in there that matter, not ingredients.’ 

‘For me, a cold slab of cheese should never go in a sandwich. I find that a horrible idea. I would sooner encase my sandwich in Babybel wax and eat it. I can’t understand why the texture you’re looking for in any sandwich is waxy. Which is how I perceive cheese. I like melted cheese though. I’m totally down with that.’ 

Max’s Sandwich Book: The Ultimate Guide to Creating Perfection Between Two Slices of Bread is out now

Find out more at Max’s Sandwich Shop and on Instagram @lunchluncheon

Photographs courtesy of Max Halley