Encyclopedia Food

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Featured Article

Grilled Cheese Sandwich Platter

Last modified on 2010-02-05 17:43:26 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Yesterday for dinner I was asked to make a grilled cheese sandwich, as usual I was feeling lazy so I was more than happy to prepare such rustic fare. For the bread I had some leftover dough in the fridge from making cheese bread, needless to say the perfect choice. I also had a tomato, some bacon, spinach, shallot, orange (local supply issues) medium cheddar, and full fat sour cream for dipping (forgot to make ketchup). I also forgot about the roasted garlic and mozzarella I had!

I started by getting my dough warm so it could get a good rise. Once the dough was warm I shaped it into a loaf and put it into a garlic oiled loaf pan. I set it aside and went about doing some other things while it doubled in volume (about an hour). Then I baked the loaf for half an hour at three seventy for twenty eight minutes, put it on a cooling rack, turned the oven off and went about the rest of my day.

Much later I returned home to a cold, but delightfully fresh loaf of bread. I put a pan on low heat and threw several slices of bacon on. When the bacon was half done I sliced a shallot, threw it in and grated in a few teaspoons of fresh horseradish, and a teaspoon of prepared. The pan was getting really sticky at this point and I removed the bacon. I deglazed the pan with my beer and let it reduce slowly.

Meanwhile I sliced the bread into relatively thin slices about half inch or a centimetre thick. The bread, while light and moist was quite sturdy, and with a mild toasting I felt it could stand up to quite the sandwich. So I toasted the bread lightly on both sides and melted a modest amount of the cheddar onto the top of each piece.

Then I got a non-stick pan on medium heat and tossed some chiffonaded spinach in and some kosher salt and the bacon chopped up. I also thinly sliced the tomato. The spinach/shallot/bacon mixture was bright green, and bacony, surrounded by a very small amount of viscous liquid, I put it on top of half of the toast/cheese pieces along with a few slices of tomato.

I let some butter melt in the non-stick and then put the toast/cheese/spinach/bacon/tomato stacks into the pan and then put the remaining toast/cheese pieces on top, voila sandwiches. Once the bottoms browned I flipped them, cooked the tops, sliced the sandwiches in half and then put them on a plate.

“I think this is the best grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever had”, was heard at dinner that night, however the person being quoted is undoubtedly partisan. I would have to agree though, it was an extremely good sandwich, I’m not usually happy with these things, especially when I forget to make ketchup for dipping. The sour cream, though completely unnecessary just made it that much better. Sadly I’m a sucker for sour cream.

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