Full Transcript for Cheesy Goodness

that. You know there's people who make grilled che sandwiches with irons, right, I mean I've seen that a couple of times. Oh yeah, it wasn't a fame. That was kind of a famous Johnny Depp scene too, right in one of his movies. 00:05:40 Speaker 2: Or are you talking about the grill the thing that that like. 00:05:43 Speaker 1: It like an iron? Yeah, not a penny. Oh I'm not like, just like make it with an iron, so you can make it anything high? Yeah, totally, you can do. Like if you're in your hotel. 00:05:53 Speaker 2: Room, you could probably make grilled cheese with the iron there and uh. 00:05:57 Speaker 1: Listen, you know I'm just looking around right now, there a microwave ove in. I always tell people I can cook on a car hood, and it's kind of true. If I can get heat, I can make something delicious. I promise you. 00:06:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, we're not too far away from National Grilled Cheese Day, which is coming up on April twelve, So let's start talking about the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. I think the first question that we need to ask Tyler is what is the best bread for a grilled cheese sandwich. 00:06:23 Speaker 1: Well, listen, there's lots of places to get started with that, and I like that kind of historical recap, but it goes a little deeper than some of those great facts that are producer put together, because the first American grilled cheese recipe was actually written by Sarah Tyson Royer in nineteen o two and it was in the Missus Royer's cookbook and was published by the Lady Swam Journal. And it was a very very like simple recipe because it was really more like grilled cheese toast. Right. And I'm kind of reading this right now. I have to look it up, but the recipe reads, it's one paragraph. The whole restle right, arrange squares of buttered toast on a silver or stoneware platter, cover thickly with grated cheese. Stand the dish in the rack in the middle of the oven, and serves as soon as the cheese melts. Okay. So that was the first documented American version of a grilled cheese sandwich, dating back to nineteen oh two. And then if you go around the world, there are versions of a grilled chees sandwich virtually everywhere, with like crispy stuff on the outside and melted cheese in the middle. And if you go to England, there's a thing called the grilled cheese toast he that you're gonna pick up at pubs, which is really kind of cool. It's usually dry on the outside, so they don't put any butter on the outside. That put the butter in usually sharp cheddar in the middle, and that's something that you're gonna get with, you know, a nice pint at a pub someplace. Also in the UK, they have a version of a grilled chees sandwich called the Welsh rare bit. Have you had that before? No? 00:07:53 Speaker 2: But I like the names. It sounds almost like my name, the Welsh rabbit. 00:07:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, well w e lsh Welsh, right and exactly. And instead of rabbit, it's it's it's spelled rare bit, but it's pronounced rabbit, right. And this is an open faced grilled chees sandwich and they make a cheese sauce which is kind of muddy. This is not my favorite grilled chees sandwich, but it's kind of interesting anyway. But it's made with beer grated cheese, mustard and worcesterre sauce, right, so it's kind of savor a little bit of paprika and salt pepper, and they'll smear this on the toast to put more cheese on top of this, and then they bake it. Okay, So is that one? And then there's there's the the I think the pinnacle of the European experience when it comes with grilled cheese, and that's the croke monsieur. Okay, So if you go to France, right, so we're in France, you got to talk about brioche, right, So that's I think the best. Now, a croke monteur is made with a grey are bechamel, which is sort of a sauce made with whole milk and u and then ingrated green are cheese and then they'll they'll put a smear of this cheese sauce on the inside the bread and then on one side is thin sliced ham the size it's grated grear cheese. They'll smash them together and they'll put a nice lick of the grier bescha melt on top of that more grated grear cheese, and they'll bake that until it's bubbly and golden brown. And then there's the female version, which is the croke Madam, which is a croke monsieur with a sunny side egg on top of it. And that's just spectacular, not justis rwich. Well, yeah, you cut into that and the yolk melts and oh, it's just so creamy that that is as good as it gets, right. And then there's the panini right in Italy, which is really interesting. And then the first recipes for a panini dated back to cookbooks from the sixteenth century. So the idea of putting like cheese and bread, it's not an American thing necessarily, although I think we do it, of course, very very well. But the panini is the first sandwich that really starts to incorporate different things other than just cheese and meat, right, because obviously there's vegetables out of top, a nod artichoke spread, you know, mortadella fontina, great soft you know, mozzarella cheese or brought the like really good extra virgin olive oil parmesan cheese, of course, and I think that's really delicious. And then there's like there's one in Australia called Tiger Toast, which they make with vegemite, which is really kind of interesting, vegemite and grated cheese. Do you like vegemite? 00:10:14 Speaker 2: I don't. It's a little pungent for me. 00:10:18 Speaker 1: It's salty, you know what I mean. It's just a nice smear. But they call it Tiger Toast in Australia. And then there's Arepa Dequeso from from Venezuela, and Arepa is made kind of like with a massa dough, right, and they stuffed cheese on the inside. And I'll make these like little hockey puck things and they'll griddle them very similar to an English muffin, where it gets crispy on the outside and you kind of break it open and it's super yummy. So anyway, grilled cheeses are all over the place. We didn't necessarily invented it, although

I think we've took it to the next level. 00:10:52 Speaker 2: What about fondue? Is fondue a grilled cheese. 00:10:55 Speaker 1: No, I mean vondu is cheese, but you stick kind of toasted bread. Plus she put mushrooms or sausage or all kinds of stuff in that, right. I mean, I'd like a good fun do. And that's a really great topic for a whole other kind of fan podcast if anybody wants a good low down, low down and how to make a really good fun do. I got a great recipe for that as well. But so they answer your question, I think to make a really good grilled cheese, of course, you got a couple of things here, right, Yeah, of course you need really good cheese. Now you can go like old school and talk about craft American cheese, right, because that's the thing, and it's I like to go double thick with that. If you're gonna make it, right, it's two slices, not one, because you really want that deep stretch. I think it's really nice. I don't think it's as satisfying as other cheeses, you know. Okay, my favorite cheese in the world, hands down is mount Ham Triple creambree from Cowgirl Creamery in Point Raise, California, and it's in Moren County. It's in the same county where I live, and I just think it's the world's greatest cheese. It's the cheese that we put on top of our burger at Miller and Lux and that inside of a grilled cheese sandwich. And it's basically breed California bree full fat, super kind of like white mushroom, nutty notes to it, good wash line on top of that. That's just spectacular, right. And then if you like the cheddar thing, I think that's pretty good too. But Monster, if you're really going for that instagram super stretchy thing, right, munster cheese Because we actually did this in one of my old cookbooks. We did a cheese stretch comparison, like what cheese is the stretchest. We were doing it for a recipe for macaroni and cheese, which kind of gives you that same stretchy vibe. But Monster cheese had the biggest stretchy effect that tasted the best, And it's kind of like one of those cheeses that's sort of off the radar that not a lot of people talk about. Do you hunt down munster cheese at a grocery store? 00:12:50 Speaker 2: I don't, but I do like munster every time I've had it. 00:12:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it's delicious. I think it's really really great. Okay, So I like what I like, You like what you like. Put it together. It doesn't really matter, right. The bread is gonna be really important now. Now. I like a really good sour dough bread. But sometimes I'll get a loaf of sour dough bread and I'll cut into it and the holes are gigantic. Like if you get like a really big guitar that does not make a good grill cheese sandwich. You need a tight crumb, right, You need something that's like a really kind of tight uh small hole bread because you really want the hold the whole thing together. Right, So I like sandwich bread. As a matter of fact, I had to call my wife and there's there's a brand that she buys from Costco

okay called Artizano. Do you know this? I don't a R T E S A n O. She buys it. She gets it delivered for the Costco delivery once week and it is the sp It's like I call it marshmallow bread. Okay, Artisano. Check it out. 00:13:49 Speaker 2: Artisana, we hold on it. 00:13:50 Speaker 1: You. 00:13:50 Speaker 2: You can get Costco delivered to you. 00:13:52 Speaker 1: You don't get Costco delivered, Bro, we don't. It's just two of us. 00:13:56 Speaker 2: What we what we buy in bulk for Oh, I. 00:13:58 Speaker 1: Don't know what I got. Like I've got three kids and you know, yeah, it makes total sense for you, Yeah, totally. 00:14:04 Speaker 2: But I've been wanting to become a Costco guy and I did not know they delivered, so that might change things for me. 00:14:09 Speaker 1: Do you have a Costco membership? 00:14:11 Speaker 2: I was actually given one for Christmas and I haven't gone and like turned it in. 00:14:15 Speaker 1: It's a very adult thing to have, you know what I mean. It's like if you got a Costco membership, that means you're officially in the suburbs for the weekend and you like to buy things a book. But anyway, so that's how we grocery shop. My wife puts that order in, it comes in. But to me, this is my favorite new bread just because it has like there's a little bit of sugar to it. It's technically a white bread. It's kind of nice crust on the outside of it, and the texture is just so like a marshmallow. It's just so fabulous, really really good bread. And that to me, I think I've made like the best real cheese sandwiches in a while with that particular bread. Although I do love a really good bit hard, hard crust sour dough bread. And then you have to kind of cut around it because sometimes you get this big jigging in the coals and it doesn't make a really good grobble cheese sandwich. Okay, there's that now, the mayonnaise versus butter story, right, people, you know, like there was a whole bit thing a couple of years ago where people like, you gotta put mayonnaise on the outside of the bread. You gotta smear it's not butter, it's mayonnaise, right. I actually don't like that, right, because like mayonnaise itself. And I'm talking about like not aoli that you make from scratch with really good extra virgin novel oil. I'm talking about stuff that you buy commercially at the store. It's made with soybean oil predominantly, and when you heat it up, it just doesn't. It doesn't smell fantastic, Like it's really good cold on a sandwich, right, but when you heat it up, it just doesn't. I don't like it, right, I mean, it's just it's just hot goo, to be honest with you and it's fat and eggs and I don't think it smells great, but I do love it on the inside. Now it's a whole different thing. Yeah right, So so pick your cheese, pick your bread, right, but you gotta go mayonnaise on the inside. I think that's really great. Sides another, both sides are yeah, yeah, because you got to have the glue to hold the stuff together, right. So if you're gonna put some stuff in it, right, it could be meat or you know, I made like a French onion grilled cheese sandwich with like deeply caramelized onions. We've made a restaurant with like shredded braised short rib and all kinds of cool stuff. But you need a goo, right to hold the stuff together while you're flipping it over it. Okay, So salt and pepper on the inside of the of the bread, I think is really crucial and not a lot of people do that, and I think that's a that's a chef touch. So okay, bread on the inside, mayonnaise and salt and pepper, got it, salt pepper broke? Okay, great cheese. Try to make sure that you've got into in coverage. Okay, so if you're if you think about this, you don't want to put cheese in the middle and then notice that you've got a big, you know, half inch or quarter inch gap from one another. Make sure that you because sometimes you can take a few slices of cheese and kind of get some good even coverage on both sides, which I think is really important. But make sure you get it goes edge to edge. I think it's good. That's critical because you want you want the there's no bad bite anywhere. Now what pan do you cook this? 00:16:59 Speaker 2: In? One question? First? Okay, so I've got two pieces of bread. I've got mayonnaise on both sides of open faces of the bread. Then I've got salt and pepper on both pieces of bread. Then do I have cheese on both on both pieces or just on one side? 00:17:11 Speaker 1: No, Well it doesn't matter right because you're gonna put bread. You're gonna put the cheese on one side, and then you're gonna take the top side of the of the bread and you're gonna smush it together and the mayonnaise is gonna hold it in place. 00:17:23 Speaker 2: Got it, So you're not starting to cook it with both the faces open, and then put on top, put one on the top of the other. Do you see what I'm saying. 00:17:33 Speaker 1: I do see what we're saying. And that's what what's his name did in Chef when he did that famous cheese scene. You know, he cooked them both separately with cheese and whatever. I don't think it's necessary, but it doesn't matter. So you want to put the sandwich together. So you've actually got at this point, you have an untoasted grilled cheese sandwich. Okay, so now what's your pant Okay, okay, I'm locked and loaded. I want to make this grilled cheese sandwich. It's gonna be spectacular. What do you grab? 00:18:03 Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a lot of options. I have one of those pans that has like the grill marks on it, and I kind of like that. It's like a cast iron with grill marks on it, and then it gives those grill marks on the grilled cheese, which I think is kind of cool. But I will say that's Panini, like right, yeah, it's kind of Panini, Like you totally right. Usually, what I'm making this, I am drunk, so I want the easiest thing possible, which is my non stick. Yeah, pan butter in there and then I throw it in. What's the right answer? 00:18:34 Speaker 1: Okay,

but how many grilled cheese sandwich? How many girl cheese are you making it a time? This is the problem. Yeah, I got a solution for you. Okay, tell me because when this is where I think making a grilled cheese sandwich is actually really relatively difficult to make because you can only get one sandwich, like the average like twelve inch saute pan. You can only get one sandwich in there at a time. If you try to get two, you know they one's climbing up the side and the cheese melts out, and then you try to fly, you don't. There's no room to flip, right, and so you kind of make a mess and it takes a long time to make, and I think a lot of people will suffer from that. Do you have a pancake griddle, like an electric pancake riddle that you get from Target for like twenty five dollars? Do you have one of those? Yeah? 00:19:13 Speaker 2: We got one, fancy one for when we got married. 00:19:16 Speaker 1: Perfect. Okay, so I've got one, I swear god. We got it at Target ten years ago when my kids were little, little, little and I also make really good pancakes at the house, and I pull this thing out once or twice a month, and it is awesome. It's like a horse, and it's got a digital thermometer. So three seventy five is that magic temperature that makes a really good grill chey sandwich, Right, So I can really get pretty precise with this and make a fantastic one. If you're gonna pull out a pan, I recommend pulling out an electric, especially if you're making more than one at a time, because you want everybody to eat at the same time, right, So it wouldn't it be nice if they all came off the griddle at the same time. It would be nice. So plug in this pancake griddle. I think it's bomb twenty five bucks. Get them from Amazon and electric plug in countertop pancake grittle nonstick. Get yourself one of those. You're gonna use it a bunch. I use them all the time, not even for pancakes, but especially for grilled tree sandwiches. Okay, So here was my light bulb moment as a chef. And everything I've done, I mean, I've written seventeen books, right, I mean, but occasionally I'll have one of those like light bulb moments, like, holy fucking shit, I've never thought about that in my life. Okay, So, if you put butter on the outside of a slice of bread, okay, butter contains a couple of things. It contains butterfat, right, So if you melt butter in the microwave, you'll see it separate in between the golden fat and then what's called the way, which is the milk solids in the bottom, and that's water. Okay. So if you smear whole butter on the outside of a piece of bread and you start to toast it, the butter, the water is gonna melt with the fat at the same rate. And I think it makes soggy bread. 00:20:56 Speaker 2: Yeah it does. 00:20:58 Speaker 1: I think it makes soggy toast, right, totally. So to retell the story in case somebody missed the last episode, my sixteen year old son came home from school for lunch and I was on a conference call and he was just like, hey Dad. You know, I'm like, do you want do you I was mouthing to him, do you want a grilled cheese? Right? He goes, yeah. So I'm in the middle of this conversation I'm listening, I'm talking as I'm starting to do this, and I forgot to put butter on the outside of the bread, and I dropped it into the pan dry, and I didn't even think about it until I flipped it over, and what was revealed to me, I think is just pure magic. When you make toast, do you butter the toast before you put in the toaster or after after? Right? Toasted bread dry is a fabulous, fabulous texture. It is glass shattery, really really crispy. It's not unctious yet because it doesn't have that lick of fat on the outside, but texture wise, it was the next level of a grilled cheese sandwich, okay, because the bread was just like so incredibly crispy. And I love the contrast between really really crispy and the blubbery cheese in the middle. I don't like a soggy bread, and then I don't like soggy and blubber. I like crispy and blood. Right, that's when it just becomes like you don't know what you're eating, Like what is this? Right? Okay, So here's my thing, and I want everybody to give this a try. Okay, so you can either do this on the pancake griddle, because when I'm cooking at the house, it's always for like, you know, two, four, six, five, ten, twenty people, right, So I like to crank up the pancake griddle and then if you're gonna make one grilled cheese sandwich in the pant, drop it in dry. Right, So, just to recap, you got the you got the bread, two sides, mayonnaise on the inside, salt, pepper, smush, cheese, cheese, your choice. You're gonna drop it in dry, flip it over once. You're gonna flip it over a couple of times to make sure it's nice. And even so, it's not gonna burn, and it's certainly not going to burn as fast as butter on the bread will burn, right, So you can kind of let it go for a while too, which is kind of nice. It gets really really crispy now. And once with one girl cheese sandwich in one pant, what I did was I threw in butter at the end and then I started to base it like a filetm in yon with brown butter. Have you guys seen that Instagram thing if you follow chefs and restaurants where they're like basing a beautiful steak with butter and like herbs and garlic and all that kind of stuff works, That's what I did. And so I was licking this, you know, like throwing brown butter on top of this earth shattering crispy toast, and it just started to like sink into it in a way that was just so interesting. And then I flipped it over and I threw in another pat of butter, about two tablespoons. It wasn't really that much. It wasn't crazy, right, and then I was just sort of like licking it up. I've got these big huge chef spoons that I use, right, And then I put it on a paper towel. Let it drink a couple seconds, and I'm like, holy shit, did I just do something different with a grilled cheese sandwich that no one? I started to look it up. I couldn't find

there's like, you know, science nerds that are trying to like figure out how crispy dry bread is. I found some science articles on it, but I'm like, that's just like next level. I had never heard of that before. 00:24:21 Speaker 2: So can you Is it easy to baste on a pancake griddle? 00:24:24 Speaker 1: Though? 00:24:24 Speaker 2: Because I feel like the thing about pasting is when you have that pin, you kind of tilted up and you kind of let all the butter kind of come to the one edge, and then you can start basting easily. Do you know what I'm saying. 00:24:34 Speaker 1: Here's the I'm glad you brought that up, because here's the variation. Because you're right, you can't tilt a pancake griddle, all right, So what I do, right, I'll riddle them dry and then I'll take a butter, pop it in the microwave, right with garlican oh yeah, and a little bit of rosemary, and I'll melt it. And then I'll take a pastry brush. I'll brush yep. Right, yeah, uh huh. You dip it into the uh huh uh huh. You dip it into the melted butter, and you start to you start to paint, you know, the tops of these grilled cheese sandwiches, and you flip it over, and you flip it over, flip whatever. So it's the contrast that you're going for that makes a spectacular grilled cheese sandwich. You want the contrast between the crispy and the blubbery, and that, to me is the spectacular texture bomb of a really great grilled cheese sandwich flavor aside, right, because you get the cheese you like, you get the bread, you like, whatever, whatever, But it's the contrast of the texture that I think takes it to the next level. Yeah, And it was just so incredibly delicious, city bomb city so incredibly good, so incredibly good. Now, the producer had one on a food network dot com and pulled off a recipe which was kind of like, kind of fancy, and I think it's really great. If you just search time Florence grilled cheese recipes will follow probably find this one too, and then you could stuff you could stuff anything into it. Right. The one that she found, which I thought was really great, uses uh, not only mayonnaise on the inside of the bread, but also a little bit of mustard, which is really kind of nice. Yeah, okay, light yep, yep, and then and then uh and then you can uh I think it was I was bree cheese, right, sliced apple mm hmm, and then fully cooked crispy bacon. 00:26:28 Speaker 2: Okay, well, now I know you Stan watched that together. Now it's a different type of sandwich though, I feel like. 00:26:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, but but but well, listen, once you start going down the rabbit hole, you can put anything in this and then that's my point, right, you can. You can really start. It's not like that sort of diner grilled cheese sandwich kind of perfected, which to me, I always think about how fabulous kind of make the most basic thing in the world, And this the grilled cheese thing I was telling about before. That's it for sure, for sure. But then if you want to get fancy pants with it, and sometimes you do, right yep, that's what you pull out, the contrast between salty and sweet and savory, and you can put I've made a grilled cheese sandwich. This one's kind of fun too, and I'm thinking about this in real time. I made a grilled strawberry a strawberry grilled cheese sandwich one time, which is kind of fun, and I haven't so funny, and think about this. I haven't pulled this recipe out in fifteen years, but you would. You take brioche, slice brioche, and you take a ring cutter and you punch out circles in it, and then you smear the outside with with butter and you dab it in sugar. Ooh, right, and then on the inside it's bree sliced strawberries and then a really great strawberry jam. And then you put two of these together. Yeah, that's and it's really really great. And then so it's breoshe and then it's like the sugary crust on the outside. And then you griddle this at a kind of a low temperature because because the sugar will burn, and you kind of create this like crim breuleg grilled cheese sandwich with like fresh strawberries and bree in the middle. And that's that's kind of next level fun too, So listen, the grill chee sandwich is it's kind of one of those things. If you can perfect the basic, then wherever you want to take this, whatever is in your fridge, you can make it your own. But the dry toast then buttered. I think that's one of the greatest things I've ever seen. 00:28:21 Speaker 2: I'm gonna try this. I think this week I might make a TikTok about it and totally make it right. 00:28:27 Speaker 1: Talk. I'm gonna take talk it up. Listen. My ideas belong to everybody. So I'm just excited that we're talking about this because you know, it's these simple recipes that everybody really really goes for. You know, I've written like some pretty complex, fancy recipes, but it's always like the simple ones that people you know, really crave and they remember. And so that dunked into you know, I usually kind of pair this with my roasted tomato soup. So grilled cheese tomato soup, combo boom. Everybody likes that. So just really quickly on that one. So that's I'll take two Kansas Amrizono tomatoes, open it up, and then I'll drain the tomatoes. Okay, keep the liquid, but drain the tomatoes, okay. And then I'll take a little bit of white onion and just kind of shift an ond that kind of cut into like a little thin ribbons, right, Julianne actually, and then and then a couple of cloves of garlic, smashed fresh rosemary sprigs and just kind of put it on the sheet tray, right, a little bit of olive oil, little bit of salt, pepper, pop it out of the broiler for like, I don't know, for like ten minutes or so, and you want to let the tomatoes just kind of cook and char a little bit and then and then dump those into a saute pan. Finish it with the tomato water, okay, because you want you want to constitute the tomato flavor, cook them, and then reintroduce that liquid back because that's got great flavor too. Finish it with some cream, which is really nice. And then I'll either take that liquid put into a blender like a Vita Prep high speed blender and just make it baby food smooth, which is so delicious, or if you have a stick blender an immersion blender to drop it in there. A lot of people like that too. Just make sure that it's as a little pulp as possible. And then I'd like, like the Pinky's Up version, We'll take a little bit of the heavy cream, reduce it with some rosemary and some garlic, and I'll do it like a little fancy like rosemary drizzle with the cream on top that with the grilled cheese dunk inside of it. It's just heavn That's just one of the most fabulous combinations ever. 00:30:20 Speaker 2: Love it well, everyone, keep the questions coming in. If you want to send in some audio messages or videos, we'd love that as well. If you see a new trend on the web that we need to know about. Send it in and uh we're here to educate or debunk whatever you got for us, So keep sending things in roll into those dms, and as always, you can follow us on at two Dudes in a Kitchen. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll be back on Thursday with Roddy dov Lukia who has a new cookbook out called Joyful which is all plant based recipes, which is gonna be a really really fun interview you do not want to miss. We will see you next time, or you will see me on TikTok drunk making a grilled. 00:31:03 Speaker 1: Cheese sandwich and you better be drunk. 00:31:05 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, see you guys. All right, guys, thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram at two Dudes in a Kitchen. Make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. 00:31:15 Speaker 1: We'll take that and we'll see you guys next time. 00:31:17 Speaker 2: I see you next time