Obsessive About Grilled Cheese
I am very particular about a lot of things. How I prepare my grilled cheese sandwich is definitely one of them. I have refined the process over the years and insist on making it the right way.
There are four things a grilled cheese must have:
Flavour - Why eat boring, tasteless food? Picking the right ingredients is key.
Crunch - the exterior needs to be perfectly browned and have a good crunch to it.
Goo - The cheese needs to melt and get into all the nooks and crannies of the bread. Cold or firm cheese is an abomination.
Soft, chewy bread - Fresh is always best, but you can’t over cook it so the bread becomes dry like a cracker.
For the perfect grilled cheese I use cheddar. It has is suitably gooey and it brings the best taste. I have used fancy three-year-old cheddar but let’s be honest, fancy cheese is best served as is. Now is the time for some top-quality from the dairy aisle, not the deli section.
My preferred bread is my homemade sourdough. Homemade bread is definitely worth the effort. The taste, texture, and chew of the bread are unrivalled. The sourdough has that tang from the starter and when buttered, caramelizes beautifully. If you are lucky the big air bubbles mean that some of the cheese sneaks through and you get some extra browned cheese.
I have tried different techniques but here is the one that consistently gets great results. I will warn you it takes time. Typically it takes me 12-15 minutes to make a sandwich. I have been mocked by people who claim their technique is faster and thus better. They are wrong.
Put a 12-inch cast iron pan on the element and turn it up to medium heat, 4 or 5 of 10. You don’t want it too high because you want the heat to slowly warm the bread so it melts the butter before it burns the bread. It seems backwards, but a cooler element gives gooier cheese.
Butter one side of the bread and place it buttered side up on the pan. Yeah, I said buttered side up. You want to lightly toast the inside of the bread so it is hot and ideally has a bit of colour.
When the butter melts fully across the piece of bread, turn it over, cover it with pieces of cheese across the now warm side of the bread. Put the other piece of bread on the pan again buttered side up.
If inside half of the butter looks to be melting faster than the outside turn both pieces of bread 180 degrees. That may happen with a big pan or a small element.
When the butter melts fully across the second piece, you should start seeing the cheese melt on the first. Now assemble the sandwich. Put the now warm side of the second piece on top of the partially melted cheese and flip it over. You should hear a satisfying sizzle as the butter starts to caramelize.
Until now you can use the melting butter as your indicator of doneness.This stage is the one part where you have to keep an eye on it. I have been distracted by making a salad or warming my soup and overcooked it. The other nice thing about sourdough is it takes a while to burn, so you have a bit of leeway. Thank you, acidic bread with a low sugar content.
When it is perfectly browned, you can take it off. Cut it diagonally, stand it up on your plate and eat immediately. Whatever you do, do not lay it on its side. The heat will cause the underside of the bread to steam, ruining all the work you did making it crunchy.
I have made grilled cheese this way hundreds of times. If I am feeling fancy, I will grill up some veggies or prosciutto in another pan to go inside. Or, if I have some leftover grated cheese, I’ll sprinkle it on the pan, then put the finished sandwich on there for a minute for an extra layer of crunchy cheese. But mostly I go with bread, cheddar cheese and butter. What could be better for lunch on a cold snowy day.
Written and photographed by me.