A Super Salami Sub

"Submarine sandwiches," also known as "sub sandwiches," but also known as "hoagies" and "grinders," are very popular, with literally tens of thousands of "sub shops" in the United States alone, and many others located worldwide. While the sandwiches often have an "Italian theme," this version of my own, continues that theme to some degree, but with some variations, including honey French dressing.

Ingredients:

six inch hoagie/sausage rolls
mayonnaise
honey French dressing (store bought or homemade*)
red onion
red sweet pepper slices
mild dill pickle slices (lengthwise)
pitted kalamata olives (far better than the canned black ripe olives, which are bland, in my opinion)
Roma tomato slices (lengthwise)
Pecorino Romano, thin slices or shavings
American cheese slices
fresh rosemary leaves
white pepper (or black)
hard salami slices
cotto salami slices
(optional) fresh chili peppers (jalapeno, serrano or habanero; I don't always use them, but I prefer fresh to the chili peppers in jars, which aren't necessarily bad, but they do generally have a vinegary taste)

For each sandwich: spread one half of a roll with mayonnaise and the other half with honey French dressing. Layer the other ingredients onto the sandwich, leaving the rosemary (about 8 leaves) and white pepper (1/4 teaspoon) until last. I press down on the sandwich; and in fact, I often, but not always, wrap the sandwiches and put them in the refrigerator with a heavy object on top to compress them for an hour or two. I use one layer each for most ingredients (onion, sweet pepper slices, pickle slices, tomato slices, Pecorino slices or shavings, American cheese slices, olives), but I use four folded slices of cotto salami (round slices with peppercorns and about 4 1/2 inch diameter) and 8 slices hard salami (round and about 3 1/2 inch diameter).** 

* For homemade honey French dressing, here is the link to my article: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/08/homemade-honey-french-dressing.html

** Cotto salami is cooked, while hard salami typically is cured and air dried.

Photo is before I pressed down much on the sandwich to compress it.

WORD HISTORY:
Salami-This word goes back to Indo European "salh," which meant "salt." This gave its Latin offspring "sal(e)," with the same meaning. This then gave Latin the verb "salare," meaning "to use salt on something, to put salt something." This then produced Latin "salamen," meaning, "salt cured meat," and then Italian "salame," with the meaning, "cured and seasoned ground meat product," and its plural form, "salami," was borrowed by English from Italian in the mid 1800s, although in English the word is used as both singular and plural, although salamis is also used as a plural.