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Grilled Cheese


sherribabee

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Grilled cheese sandwiches need white bread and aged cheddar cheese. Other types of cheese and bread are fine, but they're different animals.

Butter melted in the pan, slices of bread go in and are browned. Then more butter is added to the pan and one slice of bread is turned over into the new butter (so the browned side is up). The cheese is placed on the browned side, then it is topped with the other slice of bread (browned side down). Finally, butter and grated parmesan cheese are added to the pan and the sandwich is flipped into them. The parmesan cheese melts and sticks to the bread providing a bit more crunch, and a nice punch of flavour. It is important not to use too much cheese or butter because if you do, you'll need to use ketchup. Ketchup cuts the richness. Otherwise, a grilled cheese sandwich should be eaten as is, with no condiments necessary. Beverage of choice is a glass of milk.

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Grilled cheese sandwiches need white bread and aged cheddar cheese. Other types of cheese and bread are fine, but they're different animals.

Amen!

However all that butter makes them too greasy.

The bread and cheese sandwich (untoasted) should be placed in the Aga toaster and sandwiched between the simmering plate and its lid.

The boiling plate is too hot, and the bread blackens bfoe the cheese melts.

Worcester sauce adsorbed into the bread first is permitted, even encouraged. Home made green tomato chutney (from the egCI Autumn and Festive Preserves Unit is good too.

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I like the cheese mild, gooey, with a tang to it. I have to admit to not having been wildly adventerous here. Shame on me. I do favor sharp chedder or swiss on french or sourdough.

My usual comfort food grilled cheese:

White bread (I make a basic white with milk), medium thickness, buttered on the outsides, fried in a medium heat nonstick pan. 2 slices kraft american cheese (ooey gooey). I walk away and do something else because otherwise I'll stand there and interrupt good grilled cheese zen. Flip it, walk off again. The end result is golden brown, crisp on the outside, buttery soft on the inside and ooey gooey in the center. perfect, in my books. "Have to use" nuthin, I like mine with ketchup, and you'll have to wrestle the bottle away from my clutching dead hands. :biggrin: I like the ketchup tanginess.

Maybe chedder with sun dried tomatos would be a nice alternative.

Every once and a while I'll get a craving for my mom's favorite - I present my disclaimer by way of saying we're canadian and wierd: same as the usual sandwich, only add a thin layer of miracle whip to the inside of the bread and thin sliced onion. Her other variation was cheese toast under a flame broiler - thick white bread with sharp chedder and chives sprinkled on it. I miss having a gas broiler.

I don't know why it never occured to me until just now to actually try grilling a grilled cheese sandwich. :rolleyes:

(edited to remove restaurant comment - given it's a kid menu thing anyway in restaurants, and denny's is a faded memory -or blurry ...or both)

Edited by megaira (log)

". . . if waters are still, then they can't run at all, deep or shallow."

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btw -am I the only one that does *not* like grilled cheese with tomato soup? Ketchup is nice and tangy for dipping, the soup is...soup. Even if it's good, rich tomato soup, they seem to make each other bland to my tastes. Or am I a barbarian that I dunked my sandwich in the soup right off the bat?

". . . if waters are still, then they can't run at all, deep or shallow."

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Ketchup with grilled cheese?!?! Sounds weird to me. I like a firm buy plain white bread, like Pepperidge Farms, and two slices of Kraft singles. Butter the bread not the pan. The toaster bags make a good grilled cheese. And I'll take tomato soup with mine, thank you.

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Everytime the subject comes up I harken back to my father's grilled cheese sandwich.

Pepperidge Farms white bread

Sliced Aged Cheddar

Sliced Ripe Tomatoes

Sliced Baked Ham

Softened Butter

(Depending on inventory the tomatoes and/or the baked ham would be eliminated.)

Preheat and old fashioned waffle iron (as opposed to Belgian)

Make the sandwich. Liberally butter the outside of the bread. Place in the waffle iron and close the top. Grill until the cheese starts to ooze out of the sandwich and crispen on the waffle iron.

There is no better grilled cheese sandwich.

Holly Moore

"I eat, therefore I am."

HollyEats.Com

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Hi!

I've been lurking here for a couple of days, but this is too close to my heart. I love grilled cheese. I stick with the traditionalists (cheddar on white), but I always put mustard on the bread before I assemble the sandwich, and never any ketchup. OK, weird I know, but it's sooooo good. :wub:

I've also had (years ago) a grilled cheese that was brie & apple on a grain bread (don't remember the specific type). It was very good too.

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Velveeta.

There. Someone had to say it. :biggrin:

Take a fry pan and sprinkle a little bit of garlic powder in the pan. Take a slice of whole wheat bread, slathered with butter, and place it butter side down in the fry pan (so it will pick up the garlic powder). Add a layer of Velveeta then another slice of whole wheat with more butter slathered on the top of that slice. After browning both sides of the sandwich, remove it from the pan and pry open the gooey sandwich. Insert sliced kosher dill pickles. Close it back up and eat the sandwich with Campbell's Cream of Tomato soup with Fritos on the side.

Nummers. :wink:

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

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I like 2 slices Home Pride wheat bread, buttered on the outside, with 2 slices of Kraft American cheese. Cooked to golden perfection in a non-stick skillet over medium heat.

When I'm feeling fancy, I'll use 2 thick slices of rosemary bread, buttered on the outside, with smoked cheddar (I used to get this from the cheese counter at Eastern Market in DC, haven't found any as good yet in NYC) and thinly sliced tomatoes.

Mmmmmmmm.

Sherri A. Jackson
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Jarlsburg Cheese

Shiloh Farms SPROUTED FIVE GRAIN BREAD

Sliced Tomato (or the ketchup if no good tomatoes are available)

Cooked in a well seasoned cast iron pan...both sides spread *lightly* with unsalted butter. Tomato soup on the side...1/ 2 sour or garlic dill pickles too.

{SHILOH FARMS SPROUTED FIVE GRAIN BREAD }

A very tasty bread - perfect for toasting.

Ingredients: whole sprouted wheat,

barley, rye, oats, brown rice, pure

water, stone ground whole wheat flour,

vital wheat gluten, molasses, yeast, sea

salt and malt.

*note: I don't work @ or have stock in Shiloh Farms...I just like their bread.*

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I like 2 slices Home Pride wheat bread,

is that the butter top stuff in the yellow bag? That used to be my favorite. Still is wonderful and also the perfect bread for a peanut butter and honey sandwich.

Peanut butter on one side, goops of honey across the top of the PB, smack slices together, refrigerate. The honey seems to soak into the bread & crystalize and it gets a nifty texture. Tastes just like a reese's cup to me. Crap, I'm hungry, dinner's cooking and suddenly that sounds *really* good.

Rachel... do you dip your grilled cheese into the tomato soup or eat it seperate?

etf grammatical error, made it look like I thought Reese's are crap and therefore the sandwich tastes just like crap! :blink:

Edited by megaira (log)

". . . if waters are still, then they can't run at all, deep or shallow."

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I'm with the firm white bread, sharp cheddar cheese gang (preferably orange cheddar) BUT (and please let me know if anyone else does the same), as kids, we always put a few dribbles of sweet pickle relish on the sandwich, then grilled. Again, kind of cut the richness of the cheese and butter...like the ketchup thing.

Now the British "Toasted Cheese Sandwich" is a totally different thing. The way I was taught, in the nightwatchman's pantry on the cruise ships of P&O, was to toast your white bread, butter it, quickly put slices of aged English (or Welsh or Irish) cheddar and sandwich together. Beverage: a good strong cuppa. I'd love to have your Aga, jackal10!

kit

"I'm bringing pastry back"

Weebl

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Thank you, Toliver, for saying Velveeta. That is the classic from my childhood and I have been known to make it when recovering from a bad case of the flu or some other affliction. Plain white bread, Velveeta, and butter. That is all.

Recuperative regressions aside... My current favorite is honey wheat berry bread and gruyere, butter, in my ancient cast iron skillet. I have been through other favorite bread and cheese pairings but the constants are the cast iron skillet and smashing it with a spatula.

I don't add other ingredients to my grilled cheese sandwiches. I save that indulgence for my quesadillas, which are a variant of the grilled cheese sandwich, IMO.

Linda LaRose aka "fifi"

"Having spent most of my life searching for truth in the excitement of science, I am now in search of the perfectly seared foie gras without any sweet glop." Linda LaRose

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There are thousands of variations of the perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

This is but one:

Put sourdough bread under salamander (or broiler). Remove when nicely browned. Give these sides a quick swipe of Normandy cultured butter, a few drops of porcini oil. Layer every other piece with tallegio and a few shavings of pecorino and a few twists of black pepper. Place the blank but buttered and toasted sides atop. Butter the untoasted sides. Place under salamander. Turn with spatula. Remove. Slice.

Serve with wild mushroom bisque topped with a few sauteed chanterelles and a slice of roasted tomato.

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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Ketchup with grilled cheese?!?! Sounds weird to me.

I am totally with you on this. Freaks. :biggrin:

Ketchup is grotesque.

Although I understand from Soba that there is Filipino banana ketchup that sounds interesting. (Though not, of course, for grilled cheese.)

Still, for some grilled cheese is a "comfort food" which means that the remembered palate of a five-year old child is the standard by which things are judged. :sad:

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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Everytime the subject comes up I harken back to my father's grilled cheese sandwich.

Pepperidge Farms white bread

Sliced Aged Cheddar

Sliced Ripe Tomatoes

Sliced Baked Ham

Softened Butter

(Depending on inventory the tomatoes and/or the baked ham would be eliminated.)

Preheat and old fashioned waffle iron (as opposed to Belgian)

Make the sandwich. Liberally butter the outside of the bread. Place in the waffle iron and close the top. Grill until the cheese starts to ooze out of the sandwich and crispen on the waffle iron.

There is no better grilled cheese sandwich.

Except that's a ham 'n cheese, which is a totally different animal.

Dean McCord

VarmintBites

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Rock Hill Bakehouse Farm bread (a levain-style baked in a wood-fired brick oven) with extra sharp Grafton Village cheddar, bread smeared on the outside with softened butter and in the inside with ajvar.

I used to love grilled cheese with Campbell's Cream of Tomato until it started to suck (all that HFCS, I think).

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Try grilling them in bacon fat. :wub:

Yes! This is very very nice.

But when I do that I put bacon in the sandwich as well.

And use cast iron skillets or the griddle.

A tomato salad goes nicely as well.

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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There is no better grilled cheese sandwich.

There is always a better grilled cheese sandwich beckoning us ever and ever on from the furthest horizon.

This is what it means to be human: to strive.

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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