The Authentic Taste of the Melted Cheese Sandwich

About the Book

Why we all love Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Crisply toasted in the pan or broiled open-face to a melty sizzle, there are few things more enticing than a grilled cheese sandwich.

The golden brown toast crunches on the outside as you bite into it, yielding its soft, hot, oozing cheese. You get a rush of pleasure and a shiver of both the forbidden and the familiar: that buttery crispness of earthy bread with its layer of melting warm cheese. Cheese and buttered toast may well be a dietary luxury these days, perhaps even taboo for some; yet grilled cheese sandwiches are the culinary equivalent of a comfort blanket. A grilled cheese sandwich is probably what your mother fed you, your school fed you, and your childhood fed you. And it just might be what you feed yourself and close friends and family, at least occasionally.

Grilled cheese sandwiches can be one of the simplest things to make, something you can make at almost any hour with ingredients right there in your kitchen already, in less than a few minutes. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, after school, or midnight snack ... all are the perfect time for a grilled cheese sandwich.

Making Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

You don't really need special gizmos, though there are some nifty ones that create a crisp outside with melty cheese within. There are presses that squish fat rolls, excellent for Italian panini, Cuban sandwiches, bocadillos, and plain old grilled cheese. And there are sandwich makers that press the outside edges of bread tightly, tightly, oh so tightly together to enclose molten hot melted cheese. (The latter were very popular in Great Britain in the sixties-I am told there wasn't a household without one.) But truly, a good heavy skillet-preferably nonstick-does the trick for pan-browned grilled cheese sandwiches and a broiler works perfectly for open-faced ones. Though grilled cheese sandwiches can be no more than pan-browned bread and cheese, a little embellishment takes them onto a completely different plane: stimulating, exciting, dare I say, thrilling? Few can resist such crisp, golden, oozing temptation; I know I never can.

Choosing The Cheese

The main criterion for choosing your cheese is whether or not it melts. Not all cheeses do melt. Hispanic cheeses such as panela don't melt; neither do Cypriot anari, halloumi, or an Italian mountain cheese such as the one I once ate in Assisi roasted over an open fire. Such cheeses are delicious served sizzling on their own, but are useless in grilled cheese sandwiches. On the other hand, very creamy cheeses, delicate in flavor, soft and velvety in texture, are nearly melting already. They don't keep their character and integrity inside a grilled cheese sandwich. Pair them with another firmer, more assertive, sassier cheese. Most firm sliceable cheeses are game for the grilling and can be used interchangeably with others of similar character. To help choose, here is a mini-guide of cheese types, categorized by flavor and texture.