Grilled Four Cheese Sandwich
A recipe for a grilled cheese sandwich might seem boorish, but do you know the tips and tricks to make the PERFECT grilled cheese sandwich? The basics are simple, sure. But it's also simple to overcook or otherwise ruin what might have been the perfect winter pairing for that bowl of hot soup. Or sometimes you get home at the end of a long work-filled day and want comfort food that doesn't require a lot of effort or time. And then other times you need to satisfy an unexpected late night craving in yourself or someone else, which is why every gentleman should know how to make a quality grilled cheese sandwich at 11 pm. This recipe uses four kinds of cheese, and the technique exemplified here can be applied to make excellent quesadillas and grilled sourdough burgers.
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Ingredients
2 slices bread
1 slice American process cheese 1/3 cup Mexican blend cheese 1/4 cup butter |
Prep Time: 1 minute
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[Note: Cooking time listed here is for standard white sandwich or thin-sliced Italian bread. Using a heartier variety or thicker slice will increase the cooking time.]
Directions
Butter the opposite sides of two slices of bread.
To assure a welI-fitted sandwich, take two adjacent slices from the bag, keeping them together as you remove them, and then flip one of the slices over as you lay both slices slide by side. Be generous with the butter (1/4 cup may be a low estimate depending on the size of your slice), especially around the edges of each slice, to help prevent sticking to the heating surface. |
Place one slice, butter side down, on a heated 275 F skillet. Then fold a slice of America cheese in half diagonally and place as shown towards the edges of the bread slice, leaving a diagonal center gap.
Simply placing the whole slice of cheese on the bread produces lots of melted cheese in the center and hardly any around the edges. The placement of the cheese shown here provides a more even distribution of the melted goodness. Using an electric griddle assures a more accurate and even cooking temperature, and I like to spray my cooking surface with a little cooking spray before placing my bread slice on the griddle to ensure non-stick cooking. |
Add the Mexican-blend cheese, keeping the shreds centered on the slice and away from the extreme edges of the bread.
Most stores sell a cheese blend containing (at least) cheddar, Monterey Jack, and Asadero cheeses and call it "Mexican" in the name. The variety used here contains no taco seasoning. This placement of the cheese shreds will help to bridge the earlier gap in the American cheese once all the cheese melt together without overflowing the sandwich and running out the sides of the sandwich while cooking. |
Place the other bread slice, butter side up, on the top and let cook 5 minutes (this assumes 2 minutes for sandwich construction; the total cooking time of 7 minutes starts once you place the first bread slice on the cooking surface). It will then look something like this.
Note the areas of melted butter on the top surface. This is your clue that the heat has penetrated through the whole sandwich. But also notice that not all of the butter on the top slice has completely melted. The right proportions of unmelted and melted butter areas for your particular combination of bread type, bread thickness, and sandwich contents will vary considerably and is best learned by experience (trial and error). |
Flip the sandwich over and cook another 7 minutes.
Note the perfect toastiness of this sandwich. You want the bread toasted just enough to give it a slight "crunch" on the outer surface but not so much that it loses all its softness throughout. And timing when to flip your sandwich is a major part of cooking the perfect sandwich. Once you flip it, exposure to oxygen in the air changes the cooked surface of the bread such that the toasting process ceases, even if you continue cooking it. You'll ruin your sandwich if you flip too soon or too late! |
Serve with or without your favorite soup. French fries and tater tots will also pair well with your sandwich.
The recipe here provides the foundation for the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Feel free to experiment with other cheeses (you'll have more success with soft cheeses --- provolone and Gouda are good options) as well as other additions (meats like cooked bacon, sliced ham, or sliced turkey as well as vegetables like tomato or condiments like ketchup). You can even use these techniques to make great quesadillas as well as grilled sourdough burgers (but please cook your burger patty before constructing it on the griddle). Just remember that, generally, the more you place between your slices, the longer you will need to cook your sandwich. |
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