Hot Brown
Encyclopedia
Sandwich
A sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...
originally created at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, by Fred K. Schmidt in 1926. It is a variation of traditional Welsh rarebit and was one of two signature sandwiches created by chefs at the Brown Hotel shortly after its founding in 1923. It was created to serve as an alternative to ham
Ham
Ham is a cut of meat from the thigh of the hind leg of certain animals, especiallypigs. Nearly all hams sold today are fully cooked or cured.-Etymology:...
and egg
Egg (food)
Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...
late-night suppers.
Ingredients
The Hot Brown is an open-faced sandwichSandwich
A sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...
of turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and bacon
Bacon
Bacon is a cured meat prepared from a pig. It is first cured using large quantities of salt, either in a brine or in a dry packing; the result is fresh bacon . Fresh bacon may then be further dried for weeks or months in cold air, boiled, or smoked. Fresh and dried bacon must be cooked before eating...
, covered in Mornay sauce
Mornay sauce
A Mornay sauce is a Béchamel sauce with shredded or grated cheese added. Usually, it consists of half Gruyère and half Parmesan cheese, though some variations use different combinations of Gruyère, Emmental cheese, or white Cheddar....
and baked or broiled until the bread
Bread
Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...
is crisp and the sauce begins to brown. Many Hot Browns also include ham with the turkey, and either pimento
Pimento
A pimento or cherry pepper is a variety of large, red, heart-shaped chili pepper that measures 3 to 4 inches long and 2 to 3 inches wide . The flesh of the pimento is sweet, succulent and more aromatic than that of the red bell pepper...
s or tomato
Tomato
The word "tomato" may refer to the plant or the edible, typically red, fruit which it bears. Originating in South America, the tomato was spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and its many varieties are now widely grown, often in greenhouses in cooler...
es over the sauce, and imitation Hot Browns sometimes substitute a commercial cheese sauce instead of the Mornay sauce, though fans of the dish usually decry this substitution. Some restaurants even offer a 'veggie brown' nowadays to attract vegetarians, as the recipe is easy to modify with avocado
Avocado
The avocado is a tree native to Central Mexico, classified in the flowering plant family Lauraceae along with cinnamon, camphor and bay laurel...
, or, less commonly, soy burger.
More common alternatives to the Hot Brown include using Cheddar cheese
Cheddar cheese
Cheddar cheese is a relatively hard, yellow to off-white, and sometimes sharp-tasting cheese, produced in several countries around the world. It has its origins in the English village of Cheddar in Somerset....
or American cheese
American cheese
American cheese is a processed cheese. It is orange, yellow, or white in color and mild in flavor, with a medium-firm consistency, and melts easily. American cheese was originally only white, but is usually now modified to yellow. In the past it was made from a blend of cheeses, most often Colby...
for the sauce. Alternatives for garnishes include tomatoes, mushroom
Mushroom
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...
slices, and, very rarely, canned peach
Peach
The peach tree is a deciduous tree growing to tall and 6 in. in diameter, belonging to the subfamily Prunoideae of the family Rosaceae. It bears an edible juicy fruit called a peach...
es.
When Fred K. Schmidt created the Hot Brown, its sliced roast turkey was a rarity, as turkey was usually reserved for holiday feasts. The original Hot Brown included the sliced turkey on an open-faced white
White bread
White bread is made from wheat flour from which the bran and the germ have been removed through a process known as milling. Milling gives white flour a longer shelf life by removing the bran which contains oil, allowing products made with it, like white bread, the ability to survive storage and...
toast
Toast
Toast is bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning reaction is known as the Maillard reaction. Toasting warms the bread and makes it firmer, so it holds toppings more securely...
sandwich, with Mornay sauce covering it, with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, completed by being oven-broiled until bubbly. Pimento and bacon strips were then added to it. After its debut, it quickly became the choice of ninety-five percent of the customers to the Brown Hotel's restaurant.
The dish is a local specialty and favorite of the Louisville area, and is popular throughout Kentucky. It was long unavailable at its point of origin, as the Brown Hotel was shut down from 1971 to 1985.
Variations
The "cold brown" was baked poultryPoultry
Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of producing eggs, meat, and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as "waterfowl"...
(varied between chicken
Chicken (food)
Chicken is the most common type of poultry in the world, and is prepared as food in a wide variety of ways, varying by region and culture.- History :...
and turkey), hard-boiled egg, lettuce
Lettuce
Lettuce is a temperate annual or biennial plant of the daisy family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable. It is eaten either raw, notably in salads, sandwiches, hamburgers, tacos, and many other dishes, or cooked, as in Chinese cuisine in which the stem becomes just as important...
and tomato
Tomato
The word "tomato" may refer to the plant or the edible, typically red, fruit which it bears. Originating in South America, the tomato was spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and its many varieties are now widely grown, often in greenhouses in cooler...
open-faced on rye bread
Rye bread
Rye bread is a type of bread made with various percentages of flour from rye grain. It can be light or dark in color, depending on the type of flour used and the addition of coloring agents, and is typically denser than bread made from wheat flour...
, and covered with Thousand Island dressing
Thousand Island dressing
Thousand Island dressing is a salad dressing and condiment, a variant of remoulade and Russian dressing.Its base commonly contains mayonnaise and can include olive oil, lemon juice, orange juice, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, vinegar, cream, chili sauce, tomato puree, ketchup, or Tabasco...
. It is rarely served anymore.
On menus within the Louisville area, the Hot Brown often appears as titled "Louisville Hot Brown", elsewhere in Kentucky outside Louisville as the "Kentucky Hot Brown" and outside the commonwealth simply as "Hot Brown."
Hot Brown on TV
The Hot Brown was featured in an episode of Throwdown! with Bobby FlayThrowdown! with Bobby Flay
Throwdown! with Bobby Flay is a Food Network television program in which celebrity chef Bobby Flay challenges cooks renowned for a specific dish or type of cooking to a cook-off of their signature dish....
on the Food Network. Joe and John Castro, chefs of the Brown Hotel in Kentucky, competed with Flay in a cook-off, which the Castro brothers won. The Hot Brown was also featured on the Travel Channel
Travel Channel
The Travel Channel is a satellite and cable television channel that is headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, US. It features documentaries and how-to shows related to travel and leisure around the United States and throughout the world. Programming has included shows in African animal safaris,...
network show Taste of America with Mark DeCarlo
Mark DeCarlo
Mark DeCarlo is an American actor.DeCarlo is the voice of Hugh Neutron on the television show Jimmy Neutron. He hosted the Travel Channel's Taste of America with Mark DeCarlo for 2 seasons in 2004 and 2005, and is also known as the host of the early 1990s dating game show Studs...
and the PBS documentary Sandwiches That You Will Like
Sandwiches That You Will Like
Sandwiches That You Will Like is a 2002 PBS documentary by Rick Sebak of WQED. The unique sandwich offerings of cities across the United States are shown, from those that are often found outside of their city of origin to the...
. The Hot Brown was featured on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's The Today Show, where Top Chef
Top Chef
Top Chef is an American reality competition show that airs on the cable television network Bravo, in which chefs compete against each other in culinary challenges. They are judged by a panel of professional chefs and other notables from the food and wine industry with one or more contestants...
champion Hosea Rosenberg
Hosea Rosenberg
Hosea Rosenberg is an American chef residing in Boulder, Colorado. He was the winner of the fifth season of Top Chef, Bravo's cooking competition show....
erroneously ascribes the origin of the sandwich's name to it being "hot and bubbly brown." It was also featured on a Louisville-themed episode of Man v. Food Nation
Man v. Food Nation
Man v. Food Nation is the name given to the fourth season of the Travel Channel's Man v. Food, a food reality television series. It premiered at 9 PM ET on June 1, 2011, with a special preview episode, "The Quest Begins", airing at 9 PM ET on May 25, 2011.In this show, host Adam Richman, actor and...
, also on the Travel Channel.
See also
- Cuisine of KentuckyCuisine of KentuckyThe cuisine of Kentucky mostly resembles that of traditional Southern cuisine. Some common dinner dishes being fried catfish and hushpuppies, fried chicken and country fried steak. These are usually served with vegetables such as green beans, greens, pinto beans slowed cooked with pork as...
- History of Louisville, KentuckyHistory of Louisville, KentuckyThe history of Louisville, Kentucky spans hundreds of years, with thousands of years of human habitation. The area's geography and location on the Ohio River attracted people from the earliest times. The city is located at the Falls of the Ohio River...
- Melt sandwichMelt sandwichA melt sandwich is a type of sandwich consisting of bread, some sort of filling, and a layer of cheese, sometimes grated. The sandwich is then grilled or fried until the cheese is melted...
- List of sandwiches
External links
- Hot Brown Recipe — from the Brown Hotel (includes some history)