Reuben Quesadillas

A hearty snack idea inspired by the Ultimate Appetizer Ideabook

One of the great joys of starting a book project (or a big magazine article) is that you have a perfect excuse to gather all the books you’ve ever wanted to read on the subject and spend hours poring over them—and it counts as work. So when I started researching my Snacking Dinners cookbook, one of my very first stops was Omnivore Books, the phenomenal cookbook store in San Francisco, where the owner, Celia Sack, couldn’t wait to pull out all the snack and appetizer-focused books she thought I would enjoy. I walked away with a small haul that day, including the Time Life Snacks & Sandwiches book that inspired last week’s Bacon, Spinach & Feta-Stuffed Mushroom Caps and a small but mighty book called The Ultimate Appetizer Ideabook.

The Ultimate Appetizer Ideabook: 225 Simple, All-Occasion Recipes by Kiera and Cole Stipovich (Chronicle Books, 2016) is a treasure trove of ideas for making party-friendly foods. There are lots of dips and crostini, pretty ways of topping your rounds of brie, and labor-intensive party foods like mini buttermilk cornmeal waffles topped with sour cream and bacon. While not every recipe in the book would lend itself to a snacking dinner (ie, something that you can make pretty quickly and feels substantial enough to make a meal), they all helped me start to generate ideas.

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For more quick-and-easy (and delicious!) meals, pre-order a copy of my upcoming book SNACKING DINNERS! As a bonus, you can sign up for added drink-pairing recipes, a free signed bookplate, and a chance to win a fun prize drawing. (Pre-orders are a huge boost for sales rankings and encourage indie bookstores to stock the book.)

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Now that the book research/writing is over, I thought I’d revisit the materials that inspired me and share some of my favorites here. First up: Reuben quesadillas. Kiera and Cole actually have a handful of different ways to re-interpret the classic Reuben: there are mini sandwiches made with “party bread” (something I’ve never heard of that appears to be mini slices of bread?), open-faced toasts, and this quesadilla idea.

The quesadillas appealed to my California-kid brain for the same reason that anything inside a tortilla appeals to me, and the idea of eating Reuben ingredients in a smaller package was particularly interesting because I really love the classic sandwich but find that a whole Reuben is way too much fat and meat for me. (Even splitting a Reuben with my dad, as I do whenever he and I are near a good NYC/Jewish-style deli, ends up being too much these days, now that my family has started limiting the amount of animal protein we eat during the week for health and environmental reasons.)

While The Ultimate Appetizer Ideabook inspired me, I didn’t follow the recipe they give (though I’m sure it’s great). Instead, I did what I often do with recipes: I made it the way that would give me exactly the flavors I was craving. I started with a Russian dressing with a hint of gochujang instead of Tabasco (or a similar hot sauce), and I titrated the ingredients to work well with a Reuben, rather than a salad. (As Michael Procopio wrote last week on his Spatchcock newsletter, there are dozens of Russian dressing variation out there; if I was making a salad, I would have added something pickly, like minced capers, but since a Reuben already has sauerkraut I left that that component out.)

Second, I drove over to my local Jewish-ish deli and bought just a quarter pound of pastrami, as that seemed like more than enough meat (and was, in fact, a little more than I needed). After that, all I had to do was grate some Swiss cheese, pull the sauerkraut from its hiding place at the back of my fridge, and combine everything in some toasty wheat tortillas. (Plus, of course, weigh/measure everything so I could share my method with you.) The result was perfect! I liked it so much, in fact, that I’m planning to make it for my dad the next time he visits.

Reuben Quesadillas

Serves 1 for dinner (2 quesadillas)

For the Russian Dressing:
1½ teaspoons finely chopped white or yellow onion
Kosher salt
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish (not the kind with beets or the “cream style”)
¼ teaspoon gochujang or a dash of Tabasco or other hot sauce (optional)
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
2 large pinches sweet paprika

For the Quesadillas:
3 ounces sliced pastrami
4 flour tortillas
4 ounces (1⅓ cup) grated Swiss cheese
4–5 teaspoons sauerkraut
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1. Make the Dressing/Sauce: Finely mince the onion, then add a pinch of salt and use the side of the knife to scrape the onion into a paste. Transfer it to a small bowl, add all the other ingredients, and mix everything well.

2. Reheat the pastrami and roughly chop the slices; you’ll have about ⅔ of a cup.

3. Place a tortilla on a cutting board, sprinkle almost half of the cheese on it, then distribute half of the chopped pastrami on top. Top the meat with half of the sauerkraut, distributing it evenly, then add another big pinch of cheese. Top everything with a second tortilla.

4. Melt ½ tablespoon of butter in a non-stick pan over medium heat. Place the quesadilla in the pan, cover the pan, and cook until the cheese on the bottom has melted, 2–3 minutes. Gently flip the quesadilla and continue to cook for 1 more minute, until the cheese on the other side has melted and the tortilla is golden.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to make a second quesadilla.

6. To serve, cut the quesadillas into wedges. Drizzle each piece with some of the sauce as you eat (dipping will likely give you more sauce than you want).

Photos: Georgia Freedman