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Dec. 2nd, 2004 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickDinner was a mushroom-cheddar melt on whole wheat. While I've made grilled cheese sandwiches many, many times before tonight, I still learned something from the process this evening. The universe in a grain of sand, or something. Anyway, here's what I learned about a right proper mushroom-cheddar melt.
It's a good idea to preheat your cast-iron skillet, the one that you use to make perfect crepes and perfect french toast and perfect pancakes and, as it happens, perfect grilled cheese sandwiches, even snooty ones called melts. The bread comes out crispier if it's not made to sit on an incompletely heated skillet.
For best mushroom flavor, use half-cooked mushrooms. Raw mushrooms aren't as tasty as half-cooked ones and fully-cooked mushrooms shrink worse than a guy in the shower after the hot water runs out. You want half-cooked mushrooms -- three or four, rinsed and sliced thick, then sauteed lightly in butter (Here, and everywhere, I mean real butter. If I meant fake, vegetable-oil oleo stuff, I would SAY that. If I say butter, I mean product-of-cows. Bank on it.) until they're half cooked and have just started to bleed mushroom juice into the butter.
Use real cheese, not that pasteurized processed cheese food product shit. I'm talking real cheese, the kind sold in hunks. You can slice it yourself -- it'll be melted anyway so nobody will have to see your uneven slices. I used medium-sharp cheddar, which, seeing as how I get it in shrink-wrapped 8-oz hunks at the local grocery, probably isn't real cheese to people more snobby than I am. However, it's more-real than pasteurized processed cheese food product, innit? (Admittedly, this is not difficult. The stuff they put on Cheetos (tm) is more real than pasteurized processed cheese food product.) Anyway. Get cheese that's as real as is possible for your lifestyle and budget. What kind of cheese? Well, half-cooked mushrooms will be assertive enough to stand up to middle of the road cheddar, a baby-swiss, or a monterey jack. After that, you're on your own.
Use real bread. The floppy white stuff? You still eat that? If you're older than eight, you should be eating better bread than Wonder or the local equivalent. I used plain whole-wheat but I betcha rye or pumpernickle would go a treat too.
Now, the most annoying aspect of grilled cheese sandwiches in my world has always been trying to spread cold butter on bread. My mom did it that way, and probably your mom did too unless you're one of those humans who reproduces by mitosis and hasn't got a proper mom. However, my mom was wrong. (Sorry, mom!) There's a better way to do things, and that way is to spread an appropriately-sized glob of butter on the fucking skillet, where it can bubble to life and let you know that your preheating is done. You should be able to hear the butter talking. Slap bread down in the midst of the buttered area, add your sliced cheese, one layer thick. Carefully arrange a mushroom layer overtop the cheese, for full coverage. Top with other slice of unbuttered bread. It'll be okay. Just trust me. Now, wait until bottom bread slice is browned and crispy. Lift up sammich with flipper thingie. Spread more butter on skillet, flip sammich down on uncooked side, cook.
Not only does the butter-the-skillet thing avoid torn bread, it also makes for more even distribution of butter so that there are no missed or under-buttered areas. How damn cool is that?
It's a good idea to preheat your cast-iron skillet, the one that you use to make perfect crepes and perfect french toast and perfect pancakes and, as it happens, perfect grilled cheese sandwiches, even snooty ones called melts. The bread comes out crispier if it's not made to sit on an incompletely heated skillet.
For best mushroom flavor, use half-cooked mushrooms. Raw mushrooms aren't as tasty as half-cooked ones and fully-cooked mushrooms shrink worse than a guy in the shower after the hot water runs out. You want half-cooked mushrooms -- three or four, rinsed and sliced thick, then sauteed lightly in butter (Here, and everywhere, I mean real butter. If I meant fake, vegetable-oil oleo stuff, I would SAY that. If I say butter, I mean product-of-cows. Bank on it.) until they're half cooked and have just started to bleed mushroom juice into the butter.
Use real cheese, not that pasteurized processed cheese food product shit. I'm talking real cheese, the kind sold in hunks. You can slice it yourself -- it'll be melted anyway so nobody will have to see your uneven slices. I used medium-sharp cheddar, which, seeing as how I get it in shrink-wrapped 8-oz hunks at the local grocery, probably isn't real cheese to people more snobby than I am. However, it's more-real than pasteurized processed cheese food product, innit? (Admittedly, this is not difficult. The stuff they put on Cheetos (tm) is more real than pasteurized processed cheese food product.) Anyway. Get cheese that's as real as is possible for your lifestyle and budget. What kind of cheese? Well, half-cooked mushrooms will be assertive enough to stand up to middle of the road cheddar, a baby-swiss, or a monterey jack. After that, you're on your own.
Use real bread. The floppy white stuff? You still eat that? If you're older than eight, you should be eating better bread than Wonder or the local equivalent. I used plain whole-wheat but I betcha rye or pumpernickle would go a treat too.
Now, the most annoying aspect of grilled cheese sandwiches in my world has always been trying to spread cold butter on bread. My mom did it that way, and probably your mom did too unless you're one of those humans who reproduces by mitosis and hasn't got a proper mom. However, my mom was wrong. (Sorry, mom!) There's a better way to do things, and that way is to spread an appropriately-sized glob of butter on the fucking skillet, where it can bubble to life and let you know that your preheating is done. You should be able to hear the butter talking. Slap bread down in the midst of the buttered area, add your sliced cheese, one layer thick. Carefully arrange a mushroom layer overtop the cheese, for full coverage. Top with other slice of unbuttered bread. It'll be okay. Just trust me. Now, wait until bottom bread slice is browned and crispy. Lift up sammich with flipper thingie. Spread more butter on skillet, flip sammich down on uncooked side, cook.
Not only does the butter-the-skillet thing avoid torn bread, it also makes for more even distribution of butter so that there are no missed or under-buttered areas. How damn cool is that?
