I bought a panini press! Now what?

[Shel_B]

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

Fermented foods lose some of their good health effects if heated enough to kill the probiotics, and I don't want the lettuce to wilt.

 

I love many fermented foods, especially sauerkraut.  I always warm the kraut before eating, and most often give it a quick rinse to reduce the salt content.  Does warming the kraut destroy the health effects? I usually just put the kraut into a pan and bring the water up to a bit below boiling, about 180º - 190º or so maximum. 

[Smithy]

12 minutes ago, Shel_B said:

 

I love many fermented foods, especially sauerkraut.  I always warm the kraut before eating, and most often give it a quick rinse to reduce the salt content.  Does warming the kraut destroy the health effects? I usually just put the kraut into a pan and bring the water up to a bit below boiling, about 180º - 190º or so maximum. 

 

I'm neither a microbiologist nor a fermentation expert but the numbers I'm seeing say that the kraut probiotics die at 115F. So I think you're keeping the flavor but not the good bugs. 

[TdeV]

A ready to bake Italian sourdough loaf was purchased from the grocery. The instructions for baking are 12-15 minutes at 425ºF.

 

Do you think it would cook properly if used as is in the panini press? If not, how should I handle cooking the sandwich?

 

Something incredible: the expiry date is 04/10/2025 !!

 

!!

[gfweb]

1 hour ago, TdeV said:

A ready to bake Italian sourdough loaf was purchased from the grocery. The instructions for baking are 12-15 minutes at 425ºF.

 

Do you think it would cook properly if used as is in the panini press? If not, how should I handle cooking the sandwich?

 

Something incredible: the expiry date is 04/10/2025 !!

 

!!

would it slice well if uncooked?

[Tropicalsenior]

I don't think that I would try it because at that temperature and  for that time you are really baking it to finish it off. I think it would be pretty raw inside and just get gummy.

[rotuts]

Id bake as instructed , then let cool and use after that 

 

 

[ElsieD]

I agree with the sentiments expressed above.  Bake first.

[Smithy]

By golly, it's possible to mess these up.

 

I began with slices of a "focaccia" loaf I wrote about here, loaded it with slices of cheese and meat, pressed it until it looked great, then opened it and added spinach leaves and pickles. (I'm out of sauerkraut). Unfortunately, the meat was a combination of salami and roasted turkey breast. The turkey breast came out of the freezer. The turkey breast was still frozen when I started pressing.

 

 

Looks great, doesn't it? The exterior is perfect. But the meat interior is still cold, and the pickles only added to the cold and watery quality.

 

Don't start with frozen deli meat. Even if you're feeling impatient.

[ElsieD]

Operator error!

[Bernie]

6 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Operator error!

Pretty obvious to me in this technological age we need an internet connected panini press.

That way the press can use AI (Chatgpt👺)to tell us what we should and should not do.

Just think, eGullet could make a fortune by selling all the data necessary to train our IPAIWP (Internet Panini Artifical Intelligence Wonder Press)

 

(Actually i liberated mine the other night from the back of the hard cupboard to do a revisit. Now I am contacting the Kitchen installers to ask them to explain why I don't have a really really hard cupboard)

[Smithy]

On 11/5/2024 at 4:02 PM, rotuts said:

has anyone tried a brioche-style bread in the P.P.?

 

keeping in mind the butter , sugar and eggs ?

 

On 11/5/2024 at 4:26 PM, Smithy said:

 

I did a few weeks ago. I don't remember what was inside but the result was pretty good for a brioche style burger bun. It did toughen the surface, though. I think I prefer a more porous bread surface so it will grill properly. 

 

On 11/5/2024 at 6:32 PM, ElsieD said:

Wouldn't it squish easily?  I don't mean a minor squish but a major one.  I have a vision of something 4 millimeters thick.

 

I bought a bag of brioche-style hamburger buns yesterday and just now had a pressed sandwich made with one of those fresh buns. I can't report on the Cubano yet because I haven't cooked the pork, but I can now say that I really do prefer the more porous exterior of sliced bread to the finished outside of the brioche bun, even when that bun is fresh. ElsieD, it did squish but not hugely. But it squished and toughened, without the added benefit of the lovely butter (or mayo) dripping into the pores of the grilled bread, and without the extra crispness of said grilled and browned bread. For my tastes, the Maillard reaction is critical and this bread didn't get it.

 

 

I'll use the rest of this bread -- hopefully on at least one Cubano in the next few days -- but I don't recommend burger buns for this kind of grilled sandwich.

[Smithy]

Here's my effort at a Cuban Sandwich, following this link for the Original Cuban Sandwich. Well, following the recipe to the degree that ingredients would allow. I don't think this was Cuban bread. I'm pretty sure my ham and pork slices were thicker than intended, but they were my home-cooked pork and ham, so the best I could do!

 

Before pressing:

 

 

And after:

 

 

It's pretty good. It's huge. I've eaten about half. I think the rest will have to be breakfast or lunch tomorrow.

[BaxterBaker]

[Smithy]

This may not be terribly different from my earlier Panini-Pressed sandwiches, but I continue to enjoy my $8 purchase. There are a fair number of appliances that I've bought over the years that, if/when they die, I won't bother to replace. This I'll replace, if/when it fails me.

 

There's an adage, attributed to Dorothy Parker, that eternity = two people and a ham. Imagine the case for a single person! Nonetheless, my favorite local high-end grocery store commissions wonderful double-smoked hams as a holiday special, and I indulged during last year's holiday season. And cut it up, and vacuum-sealed the chunks. The strategy seems to be working well.

 

Earlier this week I started jonesing for some of that ham. Ham with potatoes. Mac'n'cheese'n'ham. Grilled ham sandwiches. I pulled out a smallish chunk and roasted it with baby potatoes and a package of Lipton's Recipe Secrets (basically, their onion soup mix).

 

 

Today was my chance at a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, using my beloved panini press. Sourdough bread, pepper jack cheese, mayo and mustard on the interior. @rotuts has mentioned before that putting mayonnaise on the outside of the bread, instead of butter, made for a nice coating. I decided to try it. To be fair, I'd used too much mayo inside and needed to do something with the extra. I did mayonnaise on one surface and butter on the other.

 

 

After the whole shebang was grilled I put in chopped baby greens (arugula and spring greens). See the difference in doneness on the two sides?

 

 

The bottom part had the mayonnaise on the outside. It's possible that the color difference is due to more heating on the bottom plate, but I think the composition of the mayonnaise was a factor also. All told, I preferred the buttered surface. It seemed a bit more flavorful. But the entire sandwich was good, and more than plenty for dinner.

[DesertTinker]

@Smithy. A recent revelation for me, so far only used with the A4 Box and a stovetop panini pan, is that you can use parchment paper to ease cleanup, there’s always something that leaks out and cooks onto the press/pan. I’m also on the fence re: mayo vs butter for grilled sandwiches.

[Smithy]

@rotuts, thanks for the tip on the parchment paper. In this case it doesn't matter; the non-stick plates really are non-stick, and they're easy to clean. But if I'm working on stovetop, I'll try to remember that trick.

 

Edited to add: oops, I mean to thank @DesertTinker for the tip. Sorry about that! But thanks.

Edited Saturday at 08:30 PM by Smithy (log)

[TdeV]

@Smithy @ElsieD @rotuts, I'm thinking I'd like to have some cooked bacon available for panini sandwiches.

 

I coud roast/steam a pound of bacon in the Anova steam oven in one fell swoop. Then I keep the bacon to use later.

 

How do I keep the bacon? Freeze it?

[rotuts]

@TdeV

 

if you dont eat it right away

 

Id guess you have to freeze it. 

[Smithy]

@TdeV I agree with @rotuts. That cooked bacon will last in the refrigerator for a while but it'll keep longer in the freezer. In my experience, the freezer also means the bacon is less visible and less likely to become a snack. 😀 I usually store it in a sealed plastic container in the refrigerator (no tight wrapping required) but it has an amazing habit of "evaporating". 

[blue_dolphin]

@TdeV, I don’t have a panini press nor an Anova oven but I routinely cook a whole package of bacon in my regular oven, arrange the cooked slices on paper towels, roll it up, pop in a ziplock bag and store in the freezer. 
 

Slightly unrelated, I’ve been doing something similar with uncooked bacon: I lay the strips out on parchment paper, freeze that flat, then cover with another sheet of parchment, roll and store as above. This method is quite handy if I want just one strip (or even half a strip - cooking for one here) for a recipe where it’s mostly used for flavoring or as a garnish.  I can easily use a scissors snip a frozen slice right into the pan in little strips, squares or even triangles and brown them up.

Of course, you can always just crumble a cooked slice but sometimes it’s nice to have it freshly cooked. 
 

Edited to add that the kitchn uses an accordion fold so you don’t need to freeze flat. See here for that.

Edited 4 hours ago by blue_dolphin (log)

[ElsieD]

I would freeze it.