How to Make Giada's Open-Faced Prosciutto Panini | Food Network

Larry, could I get some thinly sliced prosciutto? Why, of course. That'd be great. Prosciutto is a perfect ingredient for panini. I lay the thin slices on the toasted bread with a smear of lemon mayonnaise, then top with arugula and tomatoes. My open-faced PLT. This is a dainty and delicate panino, or sandwich. And so I'm using whole wheat bread. And this was baked this morning and there's nothing better than fresh smelling bread. I'm going to just slice six pieces of bread and about, I don't know, three, half an inch to three quarters of an inch. Actually, this is probably even closer to an inch. So whatever you can put sort of your mouth around and take a bite of. And we're going to cut them in half and they're going to look so pretty. So we're going to just add a little bit of olive oil. And it might smoke up just a little, but you need it so that the bread becomes a nice toasty brown color and you get those great grill marks. Using a little pastry brush here to make sure that it fills up the whole grill pan. I'll just put that right down. We'll toast them up. It only takes a couple of minutes and then you see it just toasts the bread. Ha ha ha. And that's all we want. We just want to toast it to make it nice and warm and create a sort of a crust on the outside of the bread. And that way the bread holds up better too. We'll just do the other side for just a minute and you can start to see the heat coming off the bread. You know it's getting toasty. There we go. And I'm just going to put them on my cooling rack just like that. If you put this straight on a plate, the heat from the bread will make the bread soggy. So you want it to cool down completely. I'm going to turn the grill pan off. Time to make the mayonnaise. We need about a half a cup. Just eyeball half a cup. Just like that because what's a BLT without mayonnaise, right? Obviously I like some mayonnaise on my sandwiches, but it's not a bad thing. And we're going to add some lemon zest and some lemon juice. And the lemon zest sort of just, again, gives more flavor to the mayonnaise. Okay. And we're going to use, actually I'm going to take all the little seeds out here. Take them out. I don't want them in my mayonnaise. I'm going to use about a tablespoon or so of lemon juice. Always have some lemons on your countertops. They make beautiful decorations and they enhance the flavor of the foods. Mix that all together. Smells good too. I'm going to cut a tomato first. Slice the tomatoes. I like to slice them pretty thin. Keep everything in proportion. If your prosciutto is thinly sliced, then you want your tomatoes thinly sliced. And remember, everybody eats with their eyes first. Just slice that up. I'll slice the other tomato as well. We're going to need it. All right. I think that's all we're going to need. We're going to put the mayonnaise, the lemony mayonnaise, right over it. Just spread it right over the top. Then we're going to add a slice of prosciutto. Now, this is prosciutto di Parma and there are two different regions in Italy that actually make prosciutto. It would be in Parma and then it would be in Friuli and it's called San Daniele. Prosciutto di San Daniele. And we're going to put some arugula right over the top. Love it. Again, you can use any lettuce you want. And on top of that, we'll just put two little slices of tomato. Doesn't that look pretty? Okay. A little bit of olive oil right over the top, just to season, lightly season the tomatoes. And a little bit of salt. Just like that. And pepper. I am going to slice it in half. Alright, I'm going to just assemble the rest of my sandwiches and then we'll be ready to serve them up. Some grilled bread, thinly sliced prosciutto, and some peppery arugula. Last one. One for the platter and one for me. Mm-mm-mm.