Open Faced Dalek Ironsides (S5E3 - Victory of the Daleks)
15 cherry tomatoes grown in your home victory garden
4 slices national loaf
4 slices bacon
4 leaves of lettuce
2 tbsp/30 ml mayonnaise
1 tbsp/15 g fresh basil or other garden herbs
Oh, look. A new Dalek paradigm. Because Skaro, Dalek Sek, and the pig people weren’t enough. This time, though, the biggest Dalek innovation is that they suddenly come in candy colors!
Don’t worry. You’re not getting an M&M’s themed Dalek recipe. Instead, in the spirit of this episode, we’re using authentic World War II ingredients to make a surprisingly Dalek-tastic sandwich
Churchill may have been a stout man, but everyone serving under him was on strict, austere rations. Luckily for you, this wartime austerity sandwich will fill your belly while also evoking the new Ironsides.
Cut your cherry tomatoes in half and let them sit in a colander to drain. I know you’re thinking of skipping this step, but if you do, the moisture in your tomatoes will exterminate the structural stability of your bread. While the tomatoes drain, mix two tablespoons of mayonnaise with whatever herbs you grow in your victory garden (fresh basil is nice, but you’re also welcome to use one teaspoon of your favorite mixed dried herbs, such as thyme, or dill).
Now slice your bacon in half length-wise so you now have eight very thin slices. Fry up your bacon until it’s nice and crispy. You can’t waste something as precious as cooking fat, so fry up your slices of national loaf (or whatever brown bread you have lying about) in the bacon grease.
Once all your bread is nice and crispy, cut the top, rounded third off two slices. Arrange whole slices directly above them. Between the curved top and the long, tapered body, you can already start to see a Dalek taking shape. Four slices is enough bread for two Dalek sandwiches.
Spread the slices of bread with a thin layer of the mayo mix. Lay one thin slice of bacon horizontally just beneath the top crust of the bread. Beneath that, lay down three slices of bacon in neat rows. Arrange the cherry tomato halves on top of the lower bacon slices so you have a neat grid of shiny Dalek-armor dots. A single round slice of olive makes a good eyeball stalk substitute. You can make some arms from a broken Pocky stick and a snipped cotton swab.
If you’ve used up your entire meat ration for the week or you happen to be a vegetarian time traveler, you can omit the bacon (or substitute Morningstar Farms soy bacon) and just toast the bread.
Once you have Dalek shaped sandwiches, arrange the lettuce leaves like a garnish.
If you don’t want to eat these open faced, simply stack an extra slice of toast underneath each of the Dalek’s body segments. When someone dissects the Dalek to callously eat the body, they can simply toss the lettuce on top of the tomatoes, flip the extra slice of bread on top, and chow down on what would’ve been a hearty and decadent sandwich during WWII.
These Dalek Ironside sandwiches are best served with tea, jammy dodgers, and a threat of extermination.
