Hmmm, favorite is hard to pin down since there’s a discrepancy between pricing, availability, time to make, etc.

Like, I’m a pb&j fanatic for sure, but it isn’t the sandwich I enjoy the most when eaten. But, if I could have things I enjoy more, more often, would that change? I don’t really know.

That being said, I kinda doubt you meant anything that simple.

So, ingredients.

First is sourcing some good, thin sliced corned beef, with pastrami as an acceptable alternative.

Good sauerkraut. The exact type is variable, since what’s good kraut is so relative. I prefer a Bavarian style seeded kraut.

Rye bread. This is where you have the most freedom since any rye bread will get the job done acceptably, but go after fresh, and ideally seeded rye. If rye isn’t something you can handle, a good sourdough will work as well, but it isn’t traditional.

You’ll need spicy brown mustard, which isn’t traditional, but it improves things.

Then you get into dressing. Originally, it was russian dressing, but thousand island has kinda become the default at many places that make a Reuben, and it’s just as good. Just don’t cheap out with store brand. You want something thick, and the cheap stuff is too runny, and since beef is expensive, why fuck around?

Cheese, the only option is swiss. Aged is best, but as long as you aren’t cheaping out, go with what you like.

Now, you get butter and get it soft.

While the butter is softening, get out your skillet and get it up to medium heat. Then throw the corned beef in. Yup, heat that beef. Don’t cook it, but let the edges brown a little and all of it heat up. Do not microwave it, just skip the step if you object that much.

As that’s finishing its process, get your first slice of bread, and lightly butter. Get your cheese and condiments ready.

Once the beef is just browned at the edges, pull it and slap the first piece of bread in. Apply cheese, then a heaping dose of kraut. Apply dressing. Allow that to progress until the cheese juststarts to melt.

As that’s ongoing, apply mustard to your other piece of bread, and get your beef into a neatly managed stack.

Once the cheese is starting to melt, the kraut will just be picking up heat. Let it sit for a bit before peeking under and checking the browning of the bread. Once it’s almost there, place your beef. Then the bread slice, then butter said bread.

Remove the sandwich with a sturdy spatula. Place a small plate on top, then flip. Pick up the sandwich on said spatula and return to heat.

Why not flip? Because unless you’re way more nimble than me, you’re going to have kraut spillage, and maybe beef as well.

Why butter the bread when you’re just going to put it on a plate almost immediately? Because when you spread butter, it gets into the crumb better than when you put butter in the pan, let it melt, and then put the sandwich on it. You end up with a deeper browning, but not the kind of slightly bitter browning you can get when the butter is melted all at once. The butter that’s in the crumb melts out slowly, keeping the overall browning to the surface of the bread.

Yes, this does mean the bread is a little more buttery. If you think that’s a bad thing, then do it your way, you poor, sad, no-butter enjoying fool.

Now, just let the bread brown slowly. If you have the heat high, you get well done bread and a barely warm pile of kraut in the middle. You keep the heat to medium high to medium, your the the same butter toasted bread, but you don’t risk over cooking it, and the heat is even throughout the sandwich.

Watch the sides of the sandwich. When the cheese starts dripping a little from where it started, you’re probably close to the meat side bread being a golden brown. So check it at that point. After that, just brown to your preferences, and pull the sandwich when done.

Let it sit on the plate while you get a pickle and whatever side you think your belly can hold, but will end up just sitting there uneaten because a Reuben is two meals, no matter what size it looks. But that pickle is going to serve to cleanse your palate between bites, perhaps every other bite, depending on how big you made the sandwich.

Obviously, this pickle should be a kosher dill, quarter sliced.

Why not have the pickle ready to go? Because that half minute to minute lets things rest. Even bread benefits from a brief rest after pan cooking. But it’s a small rest, nothing like with whole cooked meats. Just enough for the surface of the bread to even its temp out so that the outside is just toasty enough. The difference between resting and not is minimal though.

Unless you’re a Reuben obsessed freak, you might not even notice the difference from one sandwich to the next, unless you make multiple, time the rest and test at intervals to estimate the time for your preferences. Which, I guess would mean you are a Reuben obsessed freak. But the difference, no matter how tiny, is there.

Would most people give a flying fuck about the exact steps in order, and what tiny changes they make to how each flavor presents on the tongue, how the mouth feel shifts when the meat is between the kraut and cheese, or the dressing is used as a spread on the bread, etc? No, probably not. But they’re philistines, and are not worthy of a truly great Reuben ;)