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I found this open-faced sandwich-like creation in several French-style bakeries in East Asia.

  • The bottom is a narrow piece of toast.
  • On top of this toast the dish is a bit like a salad. This salad mostly consists of cabbage and lots of mayonnaise with various square bits of sliced ham and what might be bread crumbs mixed in.
  • It seems that at some thin layers of bread were baked right into the salad part and this forms a light crust on the top.

Sandwich

Several stores are calling it "凯撒", which means "Caesar, but I could find nothing about this dish anywhere on-line.Is this dish common in European bakeries? What is it called?

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Village
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  • Why not just ask them in one of the bakeries where you have seen it? – SAJ14SAJ Apr 13 '13 at 12:40
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    A take on Croque Monsieur? Cheese is not a staple in east asia, they may have tried to substitute it with mayo? – MandoMando Apr 13 '13 at 13:29
  • I am not familiar with Croque Monsieur, but pictures I found on-line look entirely different. Everything on top of the toast slice is thoroughly mixed to have the qualities of a salad, a bit like coleslaw. The cabbage mixed in mayonnaise is piled quite high. – Village Apr 13 '13 at 15:07
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    The topping on the bread looks cooked--we would not normally call that a salad, at least in the US. In fact, putting something like that on top of bread is not common in any cuisine I am personally familiar with. It might be a local dish *named* for something Western, much the same way pasta prima vera seems italian, but was invented in New York. – SAJ14SAJ Apr 13 '13 at 15:10
  • @SAJ14SAJ : spinich salad can be cooked. But this in some ways reminds me more of a tuna melt without the melt part ... but you'd take tuna salad, put with some cheddar cheese on bread and slide it under the broiler for a few minutes ... but in this case, it sounds more like a ham salad / coleslaw type concoction. – Joe Apr 13 '13 at 16:21
  • @joe I have never heard of that, but I certainly believe you--still, the exception rather than the rule. – SAJ14SAJ Apr 13 '13 at 16:36
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    do they have it on their menu or just for the day? if it is for a day only it is a left over from something, The chef think of new dish out of left overs to lessen the costing. – user17820 Apr 13 '13 at 23:15
  • It does certainly look like a bunch of leftovers, but I saw it many times at many different bakeries. Is it possible every bakery is using this recipe to get rid of leftovers and they always have the same leftover ingredients? – Village Apr 14 '13 at 00:23

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I'm not sure if there's a specific name for this particular combination, but as you mention it's specifically from a French restaurant, I'd call it a tartine, which is can refer to most anything served on a piece of bread or toast, cold or hot. If it were small enough to eaten in one bite, it'd be a canapé.

Growing up, we'd call a similar dish made with tuna salad (a mix of cooked tuna, mayo, onions, pickles) on bread and broiled 'til it developed a similar crust as a 'tuna boat' (to differentiate between a 'tuna melt' which had cheese on top), but I don't know that 'boat' in this context is generic enough to really convey any meaning to the typical person.

Because you mention cabbage, the topping in its uncooked form might be considered to be a cole slaw, which translates to cold salad but in the US generally means a cabbage salad dressed with vinaigrette or mayonnaise. Because of the ham and mayo, you might also call it a ham salad.

I'm not familiar with mayo-based cold salad recipes that use bread in them, but it's frequently used as a binder in crab cakes, which has some similarities as it's mayo-based and then broiled.

Joe
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  • I would be tempted to call those things "croquets" when they are bound with mayonnaise and broiled which it looks like the topping on the bread was.... – SAJ14SAJ Apr 14 '13 at 00:04
  • @SAJ14SAJ : I'm not familiar with mayo-based croquettes. Most that I'm familiar with are starch bound (potato for the most part, except for the ones that use flour (either a roux-based white sauce for Dutch krokete and Spanish croquetas, and I've seen a beurre manié used in some Brazilian recipes). All of them will hold their shape when picked up and eaten, which can't necessarily be said for mayo-based stuff unless you add something else, like the breadcrumbs in crab cakes. – Joe Apr 14 '13 at 01:25
  • The closest would be your crab cake example, but it makes more sense to me to call cooked items croquets than salads or cole slaws. I suspect this food item just doesn't have a common name in English. – SAJ14SAJ Apr 14 '13 at 01:26
  • In pictures I found of croquettes, it appears that the salad part is entirely encapsulated by bread. In this dish, the bread is partially mixed in, partially drizzled on the top, and cannot be picked up by hand without breaking apart. – Village Apr 14 '13 at 03:20