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The Sandwich 100 · make it at home

Jambon-beurre (the Paris ham and butter baguette)

5 min · 2 sandwiches

Three ingredients and nowhere to hide: a baguette with a crackling crust, the best ham you can buy, and butter spread thick enough to show your teeth marks. Paris eats millions a day.

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The real one

You need

• 1 fresh baguette tradition (crisp crust, open, chewy crumb)
• 60 g (4 tbsp) good salted butter (or unsalted plus flaky salt), soft enough to spread but cool
• 4 to 6 thin slices jambon de Paris (cooked ham, off the bone if you can)
• Optional: cornichons, a few leaves of butter lettuce, a smear of Dijon

How to make it

1. Choose the bread: Buy the baguette the same morning, and don't put it in plastic.
2. Cut (1 min): Cut it in half crosswise, then slice each half open lengthwise, leaving one side hinged.
3. Butter (1 min): Spread the butter thick, right to the edges, on both cut sides. In Paris it's generous, about 2 mm thick.
4. Fill (1 min): Fold in 2 or 3 slices of ham per half, loosely, so it sits in waves. Add cornichons if you like (Parisians argue about it).
5. Eat: Close, press gently, and eat within the hour, before the bread softens.

Tips

• Everything depends on the bread and the butter; spend money there.
• Swap the ham for jambon de Bayonne and add a slice of Comté for a mixte.

Chef Amazing's own home version, in our words; not any shop's recipe.