When one of my readers asked for an Asian themed GC, it was all I could think about.  I was doing some research on Asian cheeses and didn't really find a whole lot because I was thinking that the sammie had be Southeast Asian. But alas, I found a loophole.  It's still considered Asian even if it's Indian themed(in my geographically challenged mind, at least) so I decided to use the one and only Indian cheese i knew.  Paneer. Oh and by the way I officially have no idea how to cook Indian food.  I really like it, but for one reason or another I've never really tried to make anything outside the realm of curry. So here's my take...

And here's what I used!

 Ingredients

- 2 pieces of garlic flavored naan
- 1/2 tbs garlic salt
- 2 pads real butter
- 6 slices of paneer
-1 tbs yellow curry sauce
-3 tbs marinated veggies
 (finely chop 2 carrots, 1 small cucumber,1 half      medium red onion, and combine with 4 tbs ricewine vinegar,1 tbs fresh mint, 1 ts fresh cilantro, 1 ts ground cumin, and 1 ts salt. let sit for 30 minutes)
 

 After you've got your salad marinating, go ahead and slice the cheese so it will fit onto the naan. 


Next, smear on the curry sauce.  The only reason I used yellow curry was because it was already in my fridge! I'm sure that it would be delicious with any type of curry and I really wished I had some peanut curry sauce hanging around in there. oh well.


Time for those marinated veggies!


Then another layer of the paneer.


Almost done! put the top piece of naan on top.


Now butter me up and call me a biscuit grilled cheese. oh, and add some garlic salt.


Now crank up the stove to a high heat.  Why a high heat you ask?! Well let me explain!  Paneer doesn't melt.  Because paneer is never aged it doesn't have the opportunity for the fat structure and proteins to change which is why it never melts!  I had to google this because I was a little concerned about how this was going to work.  Anyways, if you just blast the heat on this sucker, it will brown the bread and also heat up the cheese so it's nice and warm.  There's no need to let it sit for a while because no matter how long it sits on your stove, it ain't meltin'.


After about a minute the naan should get crispy and golden, like this:


Once it's like that on both sides, take it off and eat it immediately!


So although this cheese isn't melty and gorgeous like the other sandwiches, I guarantee you that there are a lot of delicious flavors going on in here AND my roomies thought it was $$$.  And i hope you will too!

xoxo,

GCS


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I just spent four dollars on ONE tomato.  Yep, I have a problem.  I think I could have probably gotten this entire sandwich for that much money somewhere else, but nope, I had to get the biggest, most beautiful heirloom tomato from union square. And it was totally worth it.  So basically after buying this tomato I decided I had to do a grilled cheese around it and I thought what better than the all time Italian classic - the caprese.

So there's a lot of ingredients that go into this one, but I promise it makes it reeeealllly good.

Ingredients:

- 2 tbs hot pepper infused olive oil
- 1 ts garlic salt
- 2 pieces of olive oil & garlic ciabatta
- 1 clove of garlic
- mozerella (amount dependent on bread size)
- 1/2 tbs balsamic glaze
- 3 big basil leaves
- 1 heirloom tomato (or more)




So the first thing you'll want to do is to sprinkle the garlic salt onto the mozzarella.  I think it makes the mozzarella much tastier and my mom did it when I was little so I think it's the right way.


Now you can lay half the cheese onto one of the slices of bread.  Make sure to slice the cheese so it fits onto the bread without any of it hanging off.


Then slice that beaut of a tomato and lay it down on top of that.  Eat the rest of the tomato with salt and pepper and enjoy.


Next drizzle some balsamic glaze on the tomato. The balsamic not only tastes delcious and balances out the saltiness of the cheese, but it also functions as a glue for the basil, which is the next step.


At this point you'll want to julienne the basil and sprinkle it on top of the mater.


Now put the remaining cheese on top!


Almost done, almost done, almost done!  bread time!

After about a minute and a half it should be golden brown.  When it gets all pretty like that, drizzle the remaining olive oil and flip it. Be careful because when mozzarella melts, it's that not sticky and there's a lot of stuff on this guy so stuff might fall out. If it does, REMAIN CALM, just take everything back to your cutting board and reassemble, but don't burn yourself.

About a month ago I got a ton of emails about some mystery man who was doing a super secret underground grilled cheese delivery service.  I was instantly intrigued and thought it was one of the most awesome things i had ever heard of.  Well guess what?! I finally got his number and today my pup and I met him and swapped sammie's in the east village.  It was a lot of fun to meet another grilled cheese enthusiast and his GC was fucking delicious (and he wasn't too hard on the eyes either)!  Anyways, this is what I made in return!

Here's what I used:

Ingredients

- 1 cup of shredded gouda
- 3 pieces of cooked bacon, crumbled
- 2 tbs sauteed butternut squash
- 2 pads real butter
- 2 slices of lard bread (if you can't find it, any fatty bread will work beautifully)






After you've gathered all your ingredients, put half the cheese on one of the slices of bread.


Now put some of the cooked butternut squash on there!


Pretty, right?! Ok now if you didn't eat all the bacon, put the rest on top.


It gets kind of tall at this point, but be brave and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.


Now it's time for the topper!


After about a minute or two it should be a nice golden brown.  At this point you'll want to pick it up with your spatula and toss in the remaining pad of butter.  Let it melt like before then flip the GC and put it back into the butter.


Then when it's like that on both sides take it off, slice it and eat it as quickly as you can.


Be sure to check out bread.butter.cheese on twitter and good ole' facebook.  You can find his number on either of the sites and if you live in the area I def recommend hitting him up for dank-licious sammie. Thanks Ronnie! yay!

xoxo,

GCS

This GC is inspired by one of my best friends - Kristine. I lived with this lovely lady for three years and have seen her go from barely knowing how to boil water to being a brilliant chef-in-the-making. She came up with this recipe after we took a trip to Boston and ate at this great cafe called TRIDENT. Although the ingredients were originally in the form of an omelette we decided to turn it into a grilled cheese!



So what'd we use?



-About 2 tabs of butter (enough to cover the outside of the sammie)
-2 pieces of whole grain bread
-6 very thin granny smith apple slices
-1 pinch of cinnamon and sugar
-3 thin slices of havarti cheese

The first thing we did was layer the cheese on both sides of the bread.



Next we tried to lay the apple slices evenly so it would make the sandwich more sturdy while it was grilling.



After we found we did a good enough job we sprinkled a pinch of cinnamon and sugar over the apples. I did this because I thought it would give the apples a little extra kick when it heated up. If you're not really an apple fan you could caramelize the apples using a tablespoon of butter, the apple slices, a tablespoon of brown sugar and a pinch of the cinnamon sugar. Just melt the butter over medium heat, add the spices and drop in the apples, cooking until tender and golden. This will make them more tender, less tart and damn good.



Then we put the pieces of bread together and slabbed on some real butter.



I put the heat to medium/low on my skillet and set my little buttered baby right in there. I chose this heat because I really wanted the apples to soften before the bread got crunchy. The cheese also melted slowly which helped tenderize the apples.



This probably cooked for about five minutes on each side. If you realize that the inside ingredients seem ready (the apples have softened and the cheese has melted) then you can always just kick up the heat to finish off the bread. However, if you like your apples crunchy feel free to put the heat higher to just melt the cheese and brown the bread.



After we pulled it out of the skillet, we let it sit for about a minute and sliced it with a very sharp knife because the apple peel was kind of tough! And it looked like this...




Remember, an apple a day keeps the doctors away. But, half an apple in a grilled cheese tastes a hell of a lot better!

Happy Birthday Teany!

xoxo,

GCS

After hanging out with my favorite boys the other day, they expressed the need for some serious meat time. Of course I had some new sandwiches lined up so I cooked them up this little salty treat. Oh, and my good friend Pete came up with the super masculine name of prosciuttous maximus. Love.



So to make this manly grilled cheese I used:



-a few slices of prosciutto
-a chunk of Taleggio cheese
-a handful of arugula
-sourdough bread (i know i use this a lot, but remember i'm a broke grad student!)
-extra virgin olive oil
-(optional ingredient: balsamic glaze)

The first thing I did was turn my burner to high and started to heat my press so I could get the bread extra crunchy.



After that, I sliced the cheese and laid it on. It was kind of hard to slice because it was pretty gooey, so I stuck it in the freezer for a minute to firm it up.



Next, I folded up the prosciutto and layered it on.



Then it was time for the arugula.




After it was all piled up I mushed the baby together and drizzed some olive oil on the skillet.




Then I put my little creation on the heat and let the fire do the work. I also put my press on the sammie to crunchify it.





When it was heated all the way through, I took the maximus off and sliced it up.





The boys seemed to enjoy the saltiness but I needed something to cut and balance it a little so i opted for a drizzle of balsamic reduction.



This one was great because it was just as beautiful as it was yummy!



Bon Appétit!

xoxo,

GCS