Make no bones about it, I am English and we are not the experts in grilled cheese. What I need to know is: for the outside of the bread, do I use butter or mayo?
I've never tried it with mayo (and actually, have never heard of doing that!), but it does sound like it would be good choice.
I've always used butter or ghee for my grilled cheese sandwiches, but lately have also use extra virgin olive oil or bacon fat (which I always have on hand)...both of those yeilded _very_ tasty and particularly nicely textured toasted cheese sandwiches.
Highly recommended.
I use butter, but mayo isn't uncommon.
I heat a skillet over medium-low heat, just a sheen of olive oil, for several minutes.
Then I add the buttered bread, filling, and top bread and let it sit several minutes, peeking every so often and moving around the pan if needed.
Once that side's done (and don't rush it, it can take awhile), then I flip it and do the same.
Once that side's done, back over on the first side for about 30 seconds to crisp that side back up again.
Yes, it takes me a good 30 minutes to make grilled cheese!
Wife likes hers right out of the skillet, I like to let mine cool on a rack for five minutes.
I pan fry the slices of bread on both sides in a combo of bacon fat and butter, before adding the filling. I think I tried mayo once after hearing people rave, but it didn't do it for me. Might be a regional thing.
You can do either. I ran out of butter last week so just used mayo instead and it browned up quite nicely.
I was trying to make sense of this in light of toasters. But I guess you want recipes for a pan fried toastie?
Butter or margarine here. Medium-low heat.
Put butter on the griddle, let melt, put bread on butter, put cheese on bread, top with other slice of bread. Cook till the cheese starts melting. Flip. Cook till toasted to what you like.
I grew up using butter, but recently tried mayo on my brother's recommendation (his wife's preferred method). It worked better than I had feared, so I'll probably use whatever is more convenient in the future.
I'm wondering how light mayo works - anyone tried it instead of regular (full-fat) mayo? I make grilled cheese for my son quite often and always with butter, but I always have light mayo (Hellman's) in the house.
I suspect it won't work. Regular mayo is basically oil with egg yolk and a little bit of liquid (and butter is fat with a little bit of liquid and milk solids). So when you fry, it acts much the way butter does.
Light mayo has a lot of water in it, plus stuff to thicken it to the texture of regular mayo, so I think what you'd end up with is soggy, greasy bread.
Would you use a local cal butter/margarine spread for the same purpose? Probably not, for the same reason - too much water. The mayo is just a convenient way of spreading a thin layer of fat on the outside of the sandwich.
HeylmBack,
The answer about using light mayo is the same as it is for cooking as applied to all "light" foods. Light mayo won't work as a well. The fat is there for a reason. Besides, when you are loading your grilled cheese sandwich up with CHEESE (80% fat), why worry about the relatively small amount of fat added with real mayo? Yes, real mayo has a higher percentage of fat (90%) than cheese, but you use so much less of it than you use of cheese in the sandwich that the savings in calories or fat grams is minimal.
Mayo is just an easy way to spread a thin layer of fat (oil), on the bread. The flavoring and egg in the mayo are unimportant.
A soft margarine or butter works just as well. A hard butter is hard to spread. Restaurants probably use the same cooking fat that they use on the grill - just brushed on. Fancy places might use melted butter, but I suspect most a melted margarine or oil based product is most common.
Oil applied with a pastry brush will also work.
And with multigrain bread I often omit the fat entirely. It develops enough of a crust. Plus I don't like an overly greasy sandwich. There's enough butterfat in the cheese.
I melt my butter in the pan first, so I don't have to struggle with cold butter. It works perfectly.
Not cutting anybody down, here; but I just can't take margarine. To each his/her own, though. I butter the bread but use bacon fat in the pan and coat the inside of one slice of bread with caramelized onions and ajvar inside the other slice. I do mayo when I need a change. Better than you think, if you've never tried it.
Baby swiss, smoked gouda, provolone, just too much to chose from. Muenster and gouda are odd couple friends.
One idea I liked, because I tried it, was to grill your favorite cheese and fruit spread together (Ham on the Street was the show I got it from). What a great idea. When I need to switch things up, I love it.
Must be the badger in me, but margarine and processed cheese don't do it for me. Then again, when I was a kid, I insisted on the processed stuff.
I think I can continue to live without trying ajvar on a grilled cheese sandwich.
Jam is good, very thinly sliced tart apple is even better. Especially with mustard on the inside of the bread.
Ajvar is not weird... or maybe you're right, and BigG and I are, mildly; in any case I've used a bit of it myself to spice up a flour tortilla with melted cheese. ETA: In fact, the Tanis article I just linked to in another reply here suggests using a bit of sun-dried tomato purée - certainly a less spicy alternative. Though the word is Turkish (left over from the Ottoman Empire?) it's from the Balkans, and is just a puree, mostly made of red and chili peppers plus eggplant. Here's a recipe: https://www.godubrovnik.com/bloggers/...
Will try the ajvar. Trying to find uses for my jar of ajvar.
Today’s white Leicester grilled focaccia.
I use butter -- never heard of mayo. The important thing for me is Tillamook Medium Cheddar on the inside, with mustard.
I'm making grilled cheese tonight, following an ATK recipe. The filling is cheddar, brie, shallots, and wine processed into a spread, and the bread gets treated with a butter/mustard mix.
My grown son's favorite way for me to make him grilled cheese: good bread filled with lots of shredded Velveeta (oh the horrors!), sautéed ever so slowly in butter until the cheese is perfectly melted and the bread is crunchy. You can't rush this. You can easily burn your mouth on this! I have to say though I prefer more "sophisticated" cheeses now-a-days, this is pure contort food! I may have to experiment using mayo now.
An big advantage of processed cheeses is that they don't weep butterfat when melted. In a sandwich it may not be as big a problem since the bread can soak up the excess fat. You can make your own 'processed' cheese from 'sophisticated' ones, with the addition of appropriate emulsifier (sodium citrate).
I always use butter but if you are using cheeses that need more intense heat to melt, I think ghee would be a good option. Mayo probably has a higher smoke point too but I don't know that I'd like that flavor.
Missmarisa,
I doubt that mayo has a higher smoke point. While the oil in mayo probably has a much higher smoke point than butter, mayo also has egg in it--certainly a much lower smoke point than butter.
While reading this thread I had a disturbing thought: Has anyone tried putting a liquid cheese like Nacho Sauce or Ragu Cheese Creations on the outside of the sandwich? Hmm. Probably overkill.
I think bon app has a good take on this- mayo in the bread, butter in the pan to cook it
I use butter or margarine.
If you haven't tried it, I enjoy a grilled PB&J, which is made exactly like a grilled cheese sandwich.
Try throwing a slice or two of cooked bacon on there too!
When I was a kid we made grilled cheese in a waffle iron with reversible grids (a panini press before its time). For 'dessert' we'd put cinnamon sugar between the two slices of buttered bread, and grill them one at a time. The full weight of the grill compressed the sandwich, making something more like a cinnamon pastry than a sandwich.
By the way, thanks for the feedback guys! I went with butter
Someone asking a basic -- but essential -- question like yours may not be ready for the recipe I've linked below. Still, this recipe for grilled cheese is so decadent, that it is worth passing along.
Ruth Reichl (ex NYTIMES restaurant critic, ex editor in chief of GOURMET, and author of many food-related books) makes a grilled cheese recipe she names "The Diva of Grilled Cheese."
Link to introduction:
https://food52.com/blog/17635-ruth-re...
Link to recipe:
https://food52.com/recipes/61235-ruth...
Incidentally, the introduction provides Reichl's answer to your question: mayonnaise. She believes mayonnaise yields crispier sandwiches that are less likely to burn.
Have you tried the recipe? I'm just wondering if a whole clove of garlic for one sandwich is too much?
I agree with you that a whole clove of garlic seems like a lot for one sandwich, Salsailsa. On the other hand, melted cheese has a remarkable propensity to dull other flavors, including garlic.
Too much for my taste. I'd say "Your mileage may vary" but I suspect 1 clove is too much for you if you're asking the question.
I am mystified by this recipe... wouldn't both the onions and garlic stay quite raw since they are in the center...? I just can't imagine that in the time it takes to make a grilled cheese that they are cooked enough to loose that powerful kick of raw onion...?
You aren't alone in your concern. Here's the text from the introduction which addresses your question. (Frankly, your question is the very reason I included the link to the introduction along with the link to the recipe itself!)
"All these raw, crunchy, oniony bits seem treacherous: If the constant challenge of grilled cheese is getting the internal cheese to melt thoroughly before the bread burns, how is that same just-melted cheese supposed to cook a bunch of onions, too? Even Brooks Headley, an otherwise daring chef, sautéed them anyway. Of the sandwiches, he declared, "None left over."
But you truly don’t need to cook the alliums, as long as you cut them finely. They'll steam and soften in the melting cheese, losing their crunch but keeping some of their aggressive freshness and funk. (Though as Headley proved, if you don’t want any of that, sautéing is always an option.)"
I'm a sauté-er, and, as I mentioned above, NOT a whole-clove-advocate.
Be sure to rinse the cut onions well in hot water. And poach the garlic cloves before using. Both will reduce bitterness.
Mayonnaise on all sides of the bread - grill the insides first, then fill and grill the outside. Mayonnaise produces a superior even crust to butter - and I *love* butter and do not use much mayonnaise otherwise.
Not the question you asked, but while we're talking mayo and grilled cheese, I suggest incorporating some mayo into the grated cheese mix you're using for the filling for an occasional change of pace. The melted cheese stays soft once it cools down and the mayo adds an extra richness.
It sounds terribly unappetizing.
You don't want to use the "lite" margarines for reduced fat because they have added water which is exactly what a grilled cheese is not looking for.
I toast my bread, cool, spread with mustard, stack meat + cheese + tomato, butter outside of one piece of bread, place buttered side down in the pan, butter the other side, then flip.
The Ham on the Street show postulated that you could make a great grilled cheese with any bread + any cheese + any jam.
I use to use butter all the time but then I read about using mayo instead,
and I haven't gone back to the butter way since. I also use a glass lid to cover the pan.
With all this discussion of butter VS mayonnaise, no one has mentioned the cooking process. I grew up eating grilled cheese made in a gizmo that we called "Toastite." The design of the gizmo resulted in sandwiches with a reliably melted cheesey center and crispy bread alternating with bands of somewhat less crispy bread. The bonus was the unique appearance. The sandwiches looked like little hand pies. When my aging parents downsized their home, the item I wanted most of all was this grilled cheese gizmo.
Just now, I did a search for Toastite and discovered the item is still available! The official name is "Toas-tite". If you go to the item on the Bed, Bath, and Beyond site, you'll see three photographs.
Click on the second photograph: You'll see the way you position the sandwich in the round grille area and clamp the two halves closed. Some bread will stick out beyond the grille; to cook, trim off that excess by running a knife alongside the grille. Click on the third photograph and you'll see why I wanted to inherit the Toastite.
The reviews of this item cover one technicality. Apparently, there are two versions on the market. One, with a short handle is intended for stove-top use. The other, with a longer handle, is intended for campfire or outdoor grill use. Otherwise, the reviews, like my post, mostly focus on the memories of enjoying the distinctive sandwiches issuing forth from a Toastite.
Well, the usual cooking process is to toast the bread on a hot surface - a griddle or pan. (Oven toasting or broiling is less common, and produces a different texture and result, but is favored by some, especially if that's what they grew up with.) Most probably don't toast both sides of each slide of bread, but I encourage people to try that - I love the results.
We had a Toas-tite when I was growing up, too! They make the BEST grilled cheese sandwiches. So glad to see they still make them. Unfortunately, with a flat top electric stove, I can't use one. Getting a long handled one for the grill might be the answer! I know I've seen them at LL Bean for campfire use.
The Amazon description actually says it can be used on glass topped stoves but I'm doubtful.
A cultural point, because you're English: butter is typical but people in many areas, esp. in the South and parts of the Northeast USA, use mayo. Each works; I prefer butter.
And while I find the recipes indicating onion and garlic to be interesting and perhaps worthy, I'm dubious. There is hardly a simpler cooked food item in American cuisine than grilled cheese sandwiches. American processed cheese slices are far from my favorite cheese, but they work well here, and they keep a long time in the fridge (handy if you, like me, seldom use them except when a child and friends have crashed the house).
The classic cold-war-era companion is Campbell's tomato soup. I genuinely like this combo.
English? Not an expert in grilled cheese? Sure you are. 'Way back in "Treasure Island" folks were making "toasted cheese". I think they did it on a fork over the fireplace---my guess would be Cheddar--- then smashed it onto a toasted muffin. Sounds good!
Naked bread--that is, neither butter nor mayo--is an option. If you use a hearty bread sliced somewhat thinly, you get a crispy exterior when "grilled." It's a bit cracker-like on one side; it's delicious when done right. Don't try this with cheap sandwich bread; it won't be good. Buy a good wholesome bread from a bakery.
Given the fattiness of the cheese, you really don't need more fatty flavor on the outside of the bread.
Beecher's in NYC does it this way, and they've won all kinds of awards.
Here's my go to "recipe"
Butter melted in the pan (just enough to cover the pan)
Butter spread on the outside of the bread (make sure to lightly salt the outside as well)
Keep your pan at medium to medium high heat and put each piece of bread in the pan (DO NOT PUT THEM ON TOP OF EACH OTHER)
I use four different kinds of cheese extra sharp cheddar, Havarti, Mozzeralla (sadly "block" mozzeralla fresh moz is to soft) and muenster. Now the order of the cheese is really more important than people think it is. I tend to put harder cheese on the bottom layer since they are harder to melt the get the heat first so one piece of bread gets a slice of chedar with meunster on top, the other slice has havarti followed by the mozzarella. Back to cooking.
Keep he pan on medium until you can take a knife and actually start to spread the cheese because it's melted take the other slice place it on top your bread should be golden brown but it burnt. Serve with some tomato basil soup and it's perfect
I can understand the virtues of your technique. I'll have to give it a try some time. But I do have a question about your choice of cheeses. Is there a reason you aren't using gouda? I think of that as one of the classics in grilled cheese -- one that makes the cut for its meltability.
I honestly haven't made it with Gouda yet I'll have to give it a try sometime. As far as meltabilty goes though almost every cheese melts it's just about keeping your pan temperature at the right spot. I've never run into trouble with the cheeses I use and I really really like the flavor that havarti and meunster bring. In a perfect world I would do a six cheeses but I'm trying to live somewhat on a budget. One day though... one day
I like butter. just find how much you want to use. you can over do on the butter. since grilled cheese is pretty inexpensive you can experiment. Sometimes I just use a small george foreman grill a little pam spray and light on the butter, it makes a quick easy panini sytle grilled cheese without a lot of effort.
but in my opinion the mayo never made it better, i would only use it if I was out of butter.
You can use either. Check out the video for inspiration. I love American cheese, but let your imagination flow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg8BT...
Butter definitely. Then go crazy with different types of cheese. If you would like a different take on grilled cheese, try this for open grilled sandwich. Get a nice dense bread like corn rye or pumpernickel or any of the German breads. Give it a smear with a nice brown hearty mustard. Add cheese, I like cheddar with fontina, but take your pick. But it in a hot oven set to broil, though keep your sandwich a good distance away from the element. Cook until the top of the cheese is brown and puffy. Nice with a caesar salad for a light dinner.
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