Grilled Cheese Please

For lunch I decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches in our new pan.  You may ask why I would write about plain old grilled cheese sandwiches.  It’s because of when I talked with the chef, he said if you have a surgical steel pan, you can make great grilled cheese sandwiches without using any margarine on the outside.  When the sandwich is cooked, you end up with a crisp, toasted outside and the soft cheese inside.

I got out the new pan and set it to head on the range top while I sliced some nice Tillamook medium cheddar cheese.  I got out some slices of Dave’s Killer Bread – Good Seed and placed the cheese in the middle.

I placed the plain bread (no margarine) into the pan and set the lid in place and cooked it for 2 or three minutes.  I flipped the sandwich and it looked great!  Replacing the lid, I cooked it for another 2 minutes.  Everything is going great.

When I lifted the sandwich from the pan, a small piece of cheese slipped out into the pan and started to sear.  I quickly removed as much of the cheese as I could, but the remaining cheese baked into a brown lump.  Hmmm, maybe I have the pan just a little too hot.

The one drawback to the multi-ply pans is that once they are hot, they stay hot for a long time.  I ran warm water into the pan and gradually decreased the temperature trying to cool off the pan so I could clean it.  Finally, after several minutes the pan was cool enough not to burn me as I cleaned it to get out the remaining cheese.

I checked my sandwich and it was a little dark brown on the bottom, but still edible.

I went back, tried again, this time with a little margarine on the bread, and turned out a great sandwich for my wife.

The next time I make grilled cheese; I will use the no margarine method again with lower heat.  It is nice having a the outside crisp instead of being soggy with margarine and it adds a nice texture to the grilled cheese sandwich.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell