Grilled Cheese

There’s really nothing quite like it when it’s done well, and it’s one of those things that very few people actually manage to fuck up. Cheddar works extremely well, perhaps best, but lots and lots and lots of other kinds of gooey melty cheeses or a combination will also yield you much success. Despite not having grown up with it, I actually really like white American cheese, and often think it makes the best grilled cheese. It’s an especially delightful cheese when melted – its weird synthetic consistency allows it to stay more or less in one place but become gooey enough to reliably fill the nooks and crannies all around to it – in this case, just bread – but that’s why it does so well on burgers too. Cheddar becomes so runny and the oil tends to separate out when it gets really melted, so that it can be a minor annoyance when half the cheese drips out the back of the sandwich onto the place as you take your first byte. Not the end of the world, nothing to call Abe Foxman about, but not ideal from a culinary point of view. Swiss cheeses do fabulously, as does Fontina, and any number of probably more than two dozen cheeses, and of course it doesn’t hurt to play around with different kinds. But for now, since I’m setting things down on paper, I’m going with American.

I also like a rather humble bread – for my money, the thing that works best is a sliced white of a rather hearty variety. I can’t get down with Wonderbread, but our friends at the large commercial bread bakeries generally tend to have a variety called “Country White” or something similar which is just ever so more robust than their standard line, and maybe sliced a bit thicker too.

So here’s how we do it –

Place your bread on a work surface and distribute between two and three slices of American cheese evenly over one piece (this usually involves tearing the third piece) and then close the sandwich. Melt about ½ TBSP butter per sandwich in a pan, and when it just melts and is foamy, place the sandwich right in the butteriest spot, moving it around so that the bread absorbs all the butter. Press down firmly with your hand or spatula. Place the heat on medium low and cook, pressing firmly once or twice, until the bottom side is golden brown. Remove from the pan, melt another ½ TBSP per sandwich, place the uncooked piece of bread in the butter, swirl it around, press down, and continue to cook until the flip side is the same color and/or cheese is just starting to drip out the sides.

This sandwich does really well when sliced diagonally, then served and enjoyed immediately.