How to Cook Part I

I'm starting to realize that some of the hardest things to cook are the simplest dishes. I'm throwing around the idea of doing a series of cooking posts in which I offer up tips and some of my favorite recipes (hence the I in the title) and thought I'd start off with the two things I'm the best at: eggs and grilled cheese.

That probably sounds a bit like a joke, I know, but those two things are actually easier to screw up than you'd think. I'll start off with the grilled cheese, because it's the easier to the two things to cook, and, when treated with respect, can actually be a worthy comfort food instead of a last ditch, empty fridge, empty cupboard lunch. It starts off with the base ingredients. You can get by with just plain old white, soft, foam rubber bread. After all, this dish really is intended to feature more the cheese than the bread anyway. I just never keep the stuff in my house. Most of my sandwiches are on some sort of whole wheat, country-style, or homemade bread. The closest we get to the standard white bread loaf is the D'Italiano Italian-style bread K likes. The heartier breads do make a better base for this sandwich just because of the texture of the toast they make, but I personally avoid the whole wheat just because it seems to turn a little bitter when grilled like this. But basically, if you like the bread, you'll like the sandwich. Just remember, WonderBread and its ilk get a very sandy texture when toasted that really isn't all that nice.

The next step is the cheese. Do not ever use Kraft Singles, Velveeta or anything of the like. Sure they melt to a perfectly creamy consistency, but they taste like nothingness. It's a waste of money and time, in my opinion. Processed cheese is best reserved for dips where all of the flavor comes from the components suspended in the cheese-like creaminess. That being said, not all real cheeses are equal when it comes to making grilled cheese. Hard cheeses often just don't work except as an accent. Many of them just don’t melt well, quickly enough, or at all. Fresher cheeses like mozzarella, and the spongy Mexican cheeses that are the base of dips and quesadillas, just aren’t flavorful enough to make a decent grilled cheese sandwich, although they are perhaps a good choices to blend with sharper cheese if the sharp cheese is too much for you. I’m a big fan of cheddar, the sharper the better. I’ve found that muenster, Swiss (all of the varieties), and some of the other white cheeses are good complements to the sharp, salty tang of cheddar as well. But seriously, don’t go overboard on the quality of the cheese. Black Diamond and Tillamook cheddars are about as fancy as you want to go with it. You could spend more on the cheese, but because of the way it’s prepared, you’re kind of wasting the money.

Next is the technique. I melt a thin layer of butter in the bottom of the frying pan, just enough to coat the bottom evenly with no real pooling. I also smear a thin layer of butter on one side of the bread. It’s key not to go overboard here because you’ll just end up with hot, soggy bread if you do. You want browned and buttery in the end, not wet and greasy. Spread it on and then use the edge of the butter knife to scrape the excess off the bread. The reason that I grease the pan and only one side of the sandwich is because the first slice soaks up the butter from the pan and you’ll need more for the other side after the flip.

Before you put your half-buttered sandwich into the pan, you'll want it to be all hot and ready for your sandwiches advances. You’ll want the heat low for this. Too hot and the bread burns before the cheese melts. If you’re using one average sandwich slice of cheese on thin slices of bread, then you can go a bit hotter. If you’re like me and prefer thicker slices and more cheese, you’ll need to go more toward the simmer setting than medium heat. Make sure you put the unbuttered side of the sandwich (I put the entire prepared sandwich in the pan because I think it helps encourage the even melting of the cheese) down first for the reasons mentioned earlier. After several minutes (depends on heat and variations of stove and pans) carefully tip or pick up the sandwich with a spatula to check for brownness. If it’s brown enough, carefully and quickly flip the sandwich. If it's not browned, then put it back down to continue cooking, you big dummy! When it's time to flip, remember that the cheese won’t quite have melted enough to glue the untoasted side of the sandwich to the toasted side, so too much violence ruins the sandwich. Now flipped, don’t freak out if melted cheese starts to run out into the pan. Fried out cheese is actually a really awesome thing. In fact, if you have any scraps of cheese left over, throw them in the pan when you’re done, fry them up until the bubbles don’t close back up, flip quickly and remove to a paper towel to cool, and when you’re done, you’ll end up with a crispy cracker that will make a Cheez-It blush with shame.

Finally, when the grilled cheese sandwich is browned to your liking on both sides and the cheese is perfectly melted, remove to a plate and wait a bit. The inside is currently like molten lava and biting into the sandwich will lead to pain that induces a desire for a quite dispatch to the next life. If you’re into slicing the sandwich in half (I’m indifferent to the practice) you’ll also want to wait about 30 seconds or the process will be an exercise in futility. The cheese is just too fluid at this point. I promise, it'll still be gooey enough after a very short wait to satiate that part of your soul, but it will be much easier and less painful to work with in about a minute.

After that you can eat. It really isn’t that hard, I just made sure to cover all the basics. Feel free to experiment with cheese combinations and adding spices. I’ve found that mustard and dried mustard powder are great complements to cheese. Bacon can be good as well.

Actually, Bacon is good on anything that wouldn’t qualify as a dessert, but that’s another post.

Actually, so is the one about the eggs. I honestly didn’t think it would take this long to discuss grilled cheese, and I’m sure you didn’t either, so expect part II tomorrow.