Again, today is too rough, and we need some positivity, so time for another random cooking lesson! You know what's one of the best, easiest, comfort foodiest things you can make yourself for lunch (assuming you don't have allergies or issues with dairy)? Grilled cheese sandwiches. And he real trick to a good grilled cheese sandwich is to know the exact right temperature to keep your stove at for a nice crisp golden brown. But... I can't tell you what temperature that is or how long to pre-heat the burner to get there because that varies from stove, so what I'm going to teach you here is how to make a panicky living on the edge grilled cheese sandwich by just throwing it in a cold pan and cranking things to the max. Here's what you need:
-2 pieces of bread (ideally you want a small loaf where one piece is about the size of your hand and a fairly soft type of bread.
-Thin-sliced cheese (you can get pre-cut singles of some sort, or you can take a knife and slice from the end of a nice block of cheese. Personally I like a good sharp cheddar here, but it's your sandwich. American, provolone, Swiss, whatever).
- A stove.
- A big pan.
- A stick of butter (or some other small greasy thing you can toss into the pan to lubricate things).
- A spatula. By which I mean one of these. Some people weirdly insist this is a "turner" and the word "spatula" only be used for weird scrapy flat-knifes.
- A fork or a knife or something if you want to be extra careful about burning yourself (and a butterknife to slice up your butter/cheese possibly).
- A plate to dump the sandwich onto at the end.
OK so here's what you do! Put your big ol' pan on the stove. Take 2 pats of butter by which I mean a little square slice about as thin as you can cut it and still have a square. Plop at least one of those into the pan and just kinda cover it with some bread, trying to get it roughly in the center. If you have room, plop in the other pad too, get the other piece of bread on there too, get a head start on that end of things.
If you're really in a rush to finish this thing, and you're confident you can be speedy with these next few steps you can go ahead and turn the stove on right now, otherwise wait until the whole sandwich is assembled So, possibly with the stove now on, you take a slice of cheese and throw it on that bread. Maybe 2 or 3 if you're slicing up a tiny block of cheese, definitely just the one if you're doing like, American cheese singles. Now if you have any other ingredients you want to toss on, you can add those too. Some people like a thin slice of tomato (more practical if you're making enough of these to use a whole tomato). Maybe a little pepper. A tuna melt is real good, just take a whole can full of tuna and pile it on there, maybe mix it with mayonnaise first. If you aren't adding anything else, and you're using super thin cheese singles, probably throw another on.
Now, put the other piece of bread on there. If you were doing the butter both sides bit and the stove on bit, hopefully it's all buttery, and you want to flip it butter-up. Now you definitely want the stove on. Take that spatula and squish things down some. Scrape out anything that squeezed out and I guess just eat it or whatever. And now we get all dangerous with it.
Basically, you take your spatula, and you slide this whole sandwich around until you notice one of two things- A loud sizzling sound as the butter (or oil or whatever) in the pan starts to sizzle, or the bread starts feeling a bit stiffer (this is why I suggest soft bread). I suppose if neither of those happens and things start to smell different or burning, That's another triggering condition. So now you flip the whole thing over. If you haven't addded butter to the top piece, kinda plop that pat down on theside and aim for it. What you want to do is slide the whole spatula under the sandwich, pick it up, and flip it over. It can really help if you steady the whole thing with your fingers (on the side NOT recently in contact with the pan) or a fork or something. You do not want to touch the pan itself. This takes some practice, and the bigger the bread loaf, the harder it is, but you can manage it.
Now, look at the bread that had been touching the pan. What you do next depends on how it looks:
Still has a piece of butter just sitting on there- OK you flipped this way too early, start sliding it around again, etc.
Looks wet but that's about it- Really, see above.
Slightly golden- If that's how you like your sandwiches, cool, skip down to the final flip. If not, go back to sliding it around, but remember the pan is constantly heating, so you shouldn't wait as long on your next flip. Don't wait longer than about half the time the first side was down.
Turning black- OK, we're burning this. Eep. Flip it over. Turn the burner off. Leave it on for like, 10 more seconds, lift it off and throw it on a plate.
Nice golden brown- OK, we're perfect on that side! Time for the final flip!
So again, the stove is still getting hotter.
We're going to need way less time for this other side. If we've been nervously flipping it a lot to get to this point, stick with those short bursts. You can flip and flip again if you really want to keep checking it, otherwise, figure like... half the time the first side took.Eventually though, you're going to have 0-2 sides a nice golden brown, 0-2 sides kinda burnt. If you burnt it, remember to flip sooner next time. Eventually though you should have the timing down and will be able to do the confident just one flip thing.
If you're still burning sandwiches despite your best timing efforts, turn the burners down a bit more every time you make one. If you hit a point where you've lowered the heat too much, try turning the heat up some from there, and consider actually pre-heating the burner for a while before you throw the sandwich on. This is also the process you kinda want to do if you want to start like, making lots of sandwiches (for feeding several children, say). Get the burner to Good Grilling Temperature before doing anything, work out a consistent Time Per Side. If you're just making these for yourself though, the sloppy burner cranked method is faster, so don't worry about learning to do it properly.
Also TURN OFF YOUR STOVE. Even if you're pretty sure you already did. Always double check.
And remember grilled cheese combos well with soup. You can make soup too!
A whole lot of people swear by this method. It IS nice because you're getting less stuff out of the fridge, and can add some interesting flavor. Personally I find the overall effect a little too greasy in the end though.
