Home of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich
After choosing this sandwiches cheese, I needed to decide how to incorporate my crusting idea into said cheeses. I searched the Internet a bit but did not find any inspiration. I decided to go it alone. That has been dangerous in the past, but tonight, …
A quesadilla is a Mexican snack food made of cheese (and occasionally other ingredients) wrapped in uncooked masa (cornmeal dough) and fried, or cooked inside a corn, wheat or flour tortilla. The word comes from Spanish, and literally means “little cheesy thing” or “cheesy” (from …
When the mice are away, the cat will play.
Let’s pretend for a second that I am a cat and my folks are the mice. Well, the mice are currently away celebrating their 35th anniversary (congrats to them), so the cat decided that he would play. I decided that I wanted to try to create something new and unique that I had never really messed with before. I wanted to perfect a recipe prior to unleashing it on the masses, aka my family.
A friend of mine made a post on grilledshane’s Facebook fan page suggesting that for my next Sunday Dinners sandwich (a quesadilla, coming soon), I should not use a plain tortilla shell. Instead, I should use a flavored one, such as garlic herb. Not a bad suggestion at all. However, his comment got me thinking about naan bread, which I just happened to have in the refrigerator. For all of my previous sandwiches, I have used typical white/wheat bread, but then I got to thinking that I did not need to go the typical route anymore. I need to think outside the box, and my naan bread sits right outside that box. That is when I said, I will try to create a naan grilled cheese.
I googled “naan sandwich recipe” and stumbled on SanjeevKapoor.com which helped get my mind started on how to create tonight’s grilled cheese. Onion, tomato, and scrambled eggs were all used in this naan grilled cheese. I added shallots for the heck of it and cumin and curry to add even more Indian influence into this Indian dish. This particular recipe called for green chillies, but I went ahead and used red.
And then there was the cheese.
The recipe I found did not include cheese so I was not sure what I was going to do. I had though that I would use the leftover mozzarella from last week’s grilled cheese, but that is definitely not Indian. Then I went on a hunt for Paneer cheese, which I only learned about today.
Paneer is the most common South Asian and Persian cheese. It is an unaged, acid-set, non-melting farmer cheese made by curdling heated milk with lemon juice or other food acid. The process is similar to queso blanco, except that Paneer does not have salt added. Paneer is very closely linked to the Turkish Beyaz peynir which is also strained and squeezed the same way. (Wikiepedia)
I believe that Paneer cheese is similar to tofu in that it takes on the flavor of the other ingredients it is paired with, which would be very interesting in non-grilled cheese entrees. Oddly enough, I only now read that it is non-melting cheese, which would definitely explain why the cheese in my sandwich only partially melted. Whoops! I guess I should have investigated much more, especially when I paid $9 for a small package at Whole Foods. Let me tell you, not many grocery stores/markets have Paneer cheese. Although I wanted to continue with the Indian influence, another cheese would have most likely worked better, as I would have probably chosen a meltable one. In the Wikipedia article it mentions similar American cheeses, which might be a good place to start if I were ever to recreate this grilled cheese.
So how did I prepare this grilled cheese you may ask? Well finally, I am about to tell you. I warmed up the naan bread, by itself, as I prepared the other ingredients. When I use butter for my grilled cheeses, which isn’t always, I use sweet butter, Land O’ Lakes. I used that exact same butter this evening when I started sauteing the tomato, onion, shallots and red chillies. As they were working in the pan, I added in the curry and the cumin. I did not measure this out so just do it taste. In future versions, I would add more, but since I have not used curry and cumin in the past, I wanted to be cautious as it is easier to add than delete.
Once the onions were turning a golden brown color and everything seemed to be looking good, I added in the eggs. I just scrambled everything together until my eggs were done just how I liked them. Then, I cut the naan bread in half, placed a few slices of the Paneer cheese on the bottom half, placed the cooked egg mixture on top and closed the grilled cheese. I cooked it for about 7 minutes in the oven (400 degrees) and that was that. The only thing left to do was eat.
This naan and Paneer grilled cheese sandwich was very good and one I hope to perfect in the coming days/weeks. As I mentioned, I am new to Indian spices and ingredients so hopefully as I continue my grilled cheese cooking, I will delve deeper into Indian cuisine. I might even feature this grilled cheese as a Sunday Dinner, but since this was so in depth this evening, I may not. I do not know. Definitely try this and let me know what you think, and leave your thoughts in the comments.
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Before discussing tonight’s sandwich, I must first explain tonight’s subject and why in fact I love white, square dishes. Ever since I have started creating a new grilled cheese each and every Sunday night, I have been using coral dishes that can be seen in …
Breakfast and by extension hash browns, is a meal that I love. The same can be said for grilled cheese sandwiches. Therefore, I thought why not combine a part of breakfast (hash browns) with my favorite sandwich? It was a no-brainer… ingredients: Homemade Hash Browns …
Let me start off by thanking @goldbedr and @allisonlemons for giving me great suggestions for tonight’s grilled cheese. Unfortunately, prior to seeing the ideas, I had already devised one of my own. These ideas will definitely make an appearance in the near future, as I am sure I will need plenty more suggestions. Now onto tonight’s grilled cheese, featuring lemon caper aioli…
>> please scroll down to the updated closing section to read my new thoughts, written after eating less-burnt sandwich number two.
In order to allow the lemon caper aioli to be the star of the show and stand out front, I chose a milder cheese for tonight’s grilled cheese.
Recognized the world over Swiss-style cheeses are known for their pale yellow color, slightly nutty flavor and large holes in the flesh. But though the Swiss have been making cheese for more than 2,000 years, no one knows for certain how these characteristic “eyes” first came about…learn more.
Unlike the Asiago from last week which was in your face, the Swiss tonight was much more mild and in the background. It took a second after chewing before I could truly taste the typical Swiss flavor. It was light and definitely had more of a texture as compared to a mozzarella but not as much as an Asiago. It was good and perfect for tonight’s grilled cheese, where the cheese was actually not the focus.
Here I sit a few hours after I took the final bite and I am still not sure what to say about it. Did I like it? Yes. Did I not like it? Eh, I wouldn’t go that far, but there were times where I thought it was good by not great. I tried something different by going with a lemon caper aioli instead of fruit/vegetable ingredients, which can become boring.
The lemon caper aioli consisted of mayonnaise, a bit of olive oil and garlic, capers, lemon zest/juice, white onion, and salt/pepper all mixed together in a blender. Unfortunately, we forgot to include the mustard, so we simply added it after spreading the aioli on the bread. Prior to creating the actual grilled cheese, I of course tasted the mixture and It had a great overall flavor with the lemon and capers shooting to the forefront. It would be great on just about anything (chicken, fish, homemade potato chips, etc.) but maybe not a grilled cheese. I still haven’t decided.
Tonight, since the weather was perfect outside, I decided to grill the sandwiches, which I had yet to do. Let’s just say that I will need a lot of practice before perfecting truly grilling a grilled cheese. Thankfully the sous chef was able to scrape off burnt portions of bread. Plus, we were very lucky to have enough bread to be able to throw away one slice. I had forgotten that the melting/dripping cheese would make the flame larger and stronger, which almost did in my grilled cheeses. Either way, I am still not sure about this sandwich.
The bread, a normal Italian, worked out perfectly. It is a great bread by itself, with butter, or as a sandwich bread. The Swiss cheese melted perfectly on the grill, which made me very happy. However, that aioli, I don’t know about that.
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The night has continued on as I try and grapple with what I thought of this grilled cheese. Unfortunately, I still do not know. It was both great and somewhat good. The idea was great in my opinion it may not have been perfectly executed. Also, we started creating this grilled cheese late so there was somewhat of a rush. That is never good while trying to create a masterpiece. Tomorrow night will be take two of this sandwich. I still have aioli, swiss and bread left and plan on recreating this sandwich hoping that I may have an answer 24 hours later. Cross your fingers.
Tonight, I recreated the lemon caper aioli grilled cheese, all down to cooking it on the grill. Luckily, I kept a watchful eye and did not burn the sandwich, but instead cooked it thoroughly. This grilled cheese allowed for nicer looking photos and an improved tasting of the sandwich.
I also was able to figure out the conundrum that plagued me all last night into today. When cooking inside, on a pan, we are able to butter and butter the bread making it soft and moist. However, when cooking on the grill, I am not able to do that, even though I did butter the bread. Therefore, the bread was dry and crunchy while the insides, the cheese and lemon caper aioli, were wet. The conundrum was simply a texture issue: dry vs. wet. It really is as easy as that. Weird, huh? Beyond the texture issue though, this was a good grilled cheese and something that I would make again, for a third time. I just need to get over the texture issue.
Now that I have tasted the grilled cheese for a second time, I am changing the grade, for the better.
This week, I decided that I was going to call AOL’s bluff and see if they really knew grilled cheese sandwiches. I was about to put them to the test. I decided that I was going to follow one of AOL’s recipes. Ever since I …
Even with a week off, trying to think of a grilled cheese idea for tonight was somewhat difficult. I hope that in the future the ideas come a little easier. I will be off next week it is my dad’s birthday and we will be …
I haven’t stopped cooking my Sunday Dinners, I just have become lazy when it came to writing about said dinners. I apologize about that. The grilled cheese I cooked on January 11, 2009, was definitely a step-up from my previous dinner, which is the point. As I try out new ingredients, such as onion rings and new recipes, I hope to improve on the previous week’s meal. I hope to learn something new. I hope to try something different.
For this week’s grilled cheese, I tried to go a little different by putting onion rings on the sandwich and adding mustard as my condiment. Add in the Swiss cheese and ciabatta bread and you have yourself a great combination.
I think my favorite part of this grilled cheese was how all of the pieces worked together. Everything seemed to compliment each other and not one ingredient overpowered any of the other pieces. Unfortunately, I would love to write more, but I am not sure what else to write. As I progress with these dinners and sandwiches, I will learn to write more. Or so I hope!
Of course, photos help as well…
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The goal of Sunday Dinners is to try to create different grilled cheeses with different ingredients like onion rings. With this sandwich, I have continued to do that. Sure, this really isn’t that “out there” but it was only my second week. Plus, this grilled cheese was very yummy and a step-up from the week before.