The Best Grilled Cheese

A grilled cheese sandwich is one of those foods that, when done right, can make you feel just a bit better about life when you are having a bad day. Below I will show you how I create MY perfect grilled cheese sandwich and I hope some of you find it as good as I do.

Ingredients

The bread, to me, is the most important part of the sandwich. If the bread is too sweet or does not crisp up right it can ruin the sandwiches flavor, texture, and appearance and all three are required for good food.

I like using one of three kinds of bread:

  • Sourdough for its sour flavor which adds a lot to the overall taste of the sandwich.
  • Fuchsia because it crisps up nicely while still being soft in the middle.
  • Rye (marble or other) for the strong rye, and depending on the type herb, flavor that it has.

The cheese can be any kind of cheese, except for the fake cheeses like american and Velveeta. I prefer to use either a good aged cheddar or a dubliner cheese. The key is that the cheese needs to melt relatively easily so hard cheeses like parmesan don’t work well.

You will also need butter, lots of butter.

Prep

  1. Cut bread to desired thickness, if you like it crispier than cut it thinner and if you like it softer in the middle then cut it thicker.
  2. Grade 1.5 times more cheese than you plan on putting inside the sandwich.
  3. Butter both sides of each slice of bread.
  4. Heat a pan that is large enough to fit both pieces of bread in it side by side and put about 1/8 stick of butter into the pain.
  5. When the butter in the pan is fully melted put the slices of bread in side by side.
  6. When the bread is at the desired crispness on one side do the following:
    1. Flip one slice.
    2. Put the cheese you want to use for the inside on the cooked side of that slice.
    3. Put the cooked side of the other slice on top of it.
    4. Add some more butter to the pan.
    5. Put half of the remaining cheese on the top slice so that the cheese is facing out.
    6. Flip the full sandwich and do the same to the new side.
  7. You are now frying the cheese that is on the outside of the sandwich in the butter making a nice fried cheese crust on the outside of the sandwich.
  8. When both sides have been cooked and the cheese on the outside is crispy you are done cooking my perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

After the sandwich has cooled down a bit it is ready to eat; or you can add something to make it that much better. I like to add my homemade Sauerkraut, tomatoes and/or bacon.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

March 7, 2014 Personal, Writings No Comments on The Best Grilled Cheese

Sauerkraut

For the past year or so I have been fermenting my own sauerkraut and in that time I have had a few inquiry into my process and recipe so I figured that while it is a standard process and recipe I would post about it anyways.

Items I use:

  • Sharp knife (http://amzn.com/B008M5U1C2)
  • Potato masher (http://amzn.com/B00004OCJK)
  • Big boll
  • A big cutting board
  • Some kind of weight that will fit in your fermentation pot, if you get a Harsch it will come with some stones that fit inside.
  • and the most import item, a fermentation pot. There are a number of different types and sizes, I have a 10 liter Harsch Fermenting Crock Pot, but you can get something cheaper that works just as good, for example you can pick up a Pickle-Pro vegetable Fermenting top and a canning jar with the correct sized top. I haven’t used the Pickle-Pro but you can read a review of a number of different fermentation pots at nourishingtreasures.com

My recipe is very basic, I use salt (I like to use Himalayan salt), caraway seed and cabbage, that is all. I plan on making my next batch with cumin seed and I also plan on making a batch using juniper berries but as of yet I haven’t used anything other then caraway seed.

My Steps

  1. Peel a few of the big leaves off the cabbage and save them for later use.
  2. I cut all the cabbage up into thin slices and put it in a bowl (I use about 5 big green cabbages to fill my 10 liter pot).
  3. After all the cabbage is cut I put a handful in my fermentation pot, I add salt (about 2 tablespoons, it is safer to add more then not to have added enough) and some of the caraway seed (about 1/2 tablespoon).
  4. I then use my hands and mix it up.
  5. After the salt, seed, and cabbage is mixed up I use the potato masher to pack the cabbage to the bottom of the pot.
  6. Repeat steps 3-5 tell the pot is about 3/4 to 5/6 of the way full.
  7. Put the big leaves you set aside in step 1 so that they cover the cabbage in the pot and then put the weight on top of them.
  8. At this point, depending on the type of cabbage you used, you may have enough water, from the cabbage, to have covered the weight by about an inch. If you don’t have enough water in the pot then add enough cold water to cover the weight by about an inch and add more salt.
  9. Scrape any floating debris off the surface of the water and discard.
  10. Seal the pot and put in a dark cool place and let sit and if your pot has a sealing well then keep it filled with water.

I let my batches sit for 4 to 8 weeks.

August 27, 2013 Writings No Comments on Sauerkraut