4 Easy Iconic Foods From Popular Movies You Can Make Quickly

There are times where we all need a bit of a pick-me-up, and as many of us know, the best pick-me-ups are food-related. Instead of doing any old food post though, we wanted to take a look at some easy, iconic foods you can make from your favourite movies.

Nothing like Julie and Julia‘s five-hour beef boeuf bourguignon — we’re talking simple iconic foods that are hard to mess up but fun to devour. Let’s go.

Chef‘s Cuban sandwich

If you haven’t seen the Jon Favreau-directed and fronted Chef, it can be summed up by an iconic snack — the Cuban sandwich or Cubano. It’s a popular choice among the Cuban-American community in the United States’ Florida but it’s since spread to far-flung areas like Australia too. The best part is — it’s very simple to make.

How to make one:

This Recipe Tin Eats recipe requires you to get together a simple list including:

• 2 thin slices baked leg ham
• 4 large, thin slices Cuban-style pork (mojo-marinated but something similar will do the job)
• 2 pieces of white baguettes , 15 cm in length, cut in half
• Melted butter, for brushing
• American mustard
• 2 thin slices Swiss cheese
• 2 or 3 dill pickles, thinly sliced

Cook the ham and pork slices on a pan until browned and then remove. Then butter the cut side of your baguette and pop it face down to toast it on the pan and remove it once ready.

Pop each toasted baguette slice down and layer on mustard, then the pork, ham, cheese and pickles. Pop the sides back together and then butter the outside (non-cut side) of the baguettes then placed them back on the pan.

Put pressure on the baguette to make sure its getting the full heat and turn over after around three minutes or when it’s brown. Do both sides until it’s properly toasted and the cheese has melted.

¡Buen provecho!

Harry Potter’s Butterbeer

Butterbeer from the Harry Potter franchise is next on our list. Since travelling to the gimmicky movie studios overseas to try their version of it is off the list (cheers COVID!), let’s make our own at home.

How to make it:

We’re grabbing this recipe from Favourite Family Recipes. According to it, you’ll need:

• 2 litres cream soda, chilled (the brown cream soda, not the red one we’re more familiar with)
• 1/4 tsp caramel extract
• 1/4 tsp butter extract
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup butterscotch topping
• 1/4 cup icing sugar

First, you’re going to need to mix up the heavy cream until it’s nice and thick. Then add the butterscotch topping and icing sugar and mix it together.

Now grab your cream soda and mix in the butter and caramel extract. Pour it into a mason jar or whatever glass you’ve got on hand and top it with the cream concoction.

Enjoy, muggles.

When Harry Met Sally‘s Reuben sandwich

Perhaps one of the most iconic scenes of any rom-com is the Katz’s Delicatessen scene from When Harry Met Sally. Now a staple for any visitor to New York City to try, it introduced the globally exported Reuben sandwich and Katz’s is one of the best at it.

How to make one:

Relying on old pals, Recipe Tin Eats, again, you’ll need:

• 1 kg homemade pastrami (or store-bought will do if you don’t mind the flavour sacrifice)
• 10 slices light rye bread
• 10 slices Swiss cheese
• Sauerkraut
• Russian dressing
• Butter

You might need to pre-prepare some Russian dressing as the recipe suggests, which only requires a few simple ingredients. Otherwise, a lazy substitute is Thousand Island dressing.

You’ll need to heat up the pastrami first — in the oven, grill or microwave. Then toast your rye bread and spread with the Russian dressing.

Pop on a generous few layers of pastrami followed by the sauerkraut and Swiss cheese. On the top rye slice, spread some more Russian dressing and chuck on another cheese slice on top. Then grill both slices until the cheese melts and then slap the two together and devour.

Now you’re ready to have what she’s having.

The Lord of the Rings’ Lembas bread

Finally, we land on The Lord of the Ring‘s Lembas bread. It’s first introduced in the first film of the trilogy when Legolas (Orlando Bloom) sets off with the hobbits on the adventure. Legolas eats Lembas bread, saying a small bite can fill a grown man’s stomach. Sure.

Like Butterbeer, it’s not really a real human food so let’s get creative with making it.

How to make one:

This speculative recipe comes from Spark Recipes and requires you to have on hand:

• 2 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 8 tablespoons of cold butter
• 1/3 cup of brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon maple syrup/honey
• 2/3 cup of milk/heavy cream (or more, if necessary)
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

You’ll first need to preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celcius. While that’s heating up, mix your dry ingredients in a bowl — flour, baking powder and salt. Then pop in your softened, not melted butter, until the mixture looks like “fine granules”. Pop in the sugar and cinnamon after this.

Now add the milk, or cream, and the vanilla and mix it all together until a thick dough forms. Roll out the dough until it’s a bit over a centimetre thick. Then carve out neat squares about seven centimetres in length and add an indent from one corner to another to get the same look as the movies.

Bake for about 12 minutes or until lightly golden. One bite might not be enough to fill your stomach but you’ll have plenty more left with this recipe.

This article has been updated since its original publish date.