I like, maybe even love, grilled cheese sandwiches. We probably eat way too many of them. They rank right up there with pizza. At one time, I would eat them, but really wasn’t a fan of them. I just didn’t particularly care for American cheese, which was the de facto grilled cheese standard. Can American cheese really be called a cheese? The fact that it’s a cheese type product that we call American I think says something about our society. Mainly that it’s not really . . . cultured. The cheese and the society.
Anyway, we use all types of real cheese to make our grilled cheese: monterrey jack, pepper jack, colby, all types of cheddar, a mix of different types, etc.
We have used typical sandwich bread almost exclusively. Man, were we short changing ourselves on that deal.
The other day Jodi decided to use some “everything bread” to make the sandwiches. Now this bread is pretty awesome all by itself. It’s a moist, dense Italian loaf that has coarse salt, garlic, poppy and sesame seeds, and onion on its top. She cut slices off that were between half and three-quarters of an inch thick. Let’s call it five-eighths. She then used some sharp cheddar block cheese and cut slices off it that were approximately one-quarter of an inch thick.
From there, the bread was carefully buttered with some spreadable butter. For those of you using margarine, please discard the cheddar and just use that old standby American cheese. One slice of bread was placed buttered side down in a heated cast iron skillet. The cheese slices were placed one layer thick on that slice of bread and then covered with the other slice of bread buttered side up. Let the butter and skillet do their magic on the bread toasting it to a beautifully delicious crunchy golden brown. Flip the sandwich and repeat until the cheese is just melted.
Now get an ice cold beer and sit down and enjoy the crunchy, salty, chewy, stringy, melt in your mouth goodness that was just created. If there are some malt vinegar chips around, I think those would pair nicely with it. We didn’t so I can only imagine.
Experiment with all types of cheese and thicknesses until you find that supernatural combination that is blow your tastebuds perfect for you.