Ultimate Grilled Cheese Sandwich
My wife is pregnant, as you guys know. She is due early December and we're very excited about this. Her pregnancy has been a breeze so far. None of the horror stories that people have told me happened to me. No crazy cravings at 3 in the morning for some impossible to find food item. Everything has been pretty smooth sailing, in fact it has been fun.
She's had a few cravings but mostly for normal food, or confort food. She asked me for a grilled cheese sandwich the other night. But she said she didn't want a regular one.
This is what I came up with. I then made one for myself because it looked so damn good. And it was. Feast your eyes and don't drool over your keyboard.
Ingredients:
- Bacon
- American cheese, Spicy Jack cheese and Colby Jack.
- Jalapeños
- Thin sliced bread
- You'll need a cast iron skillet. You can use something else if you don't have one. It just won't be the same.
Prep & cook:
Slice jalapeños super thin. I use a mandolin slicer; the slicing process also separates the flesh from the seeds. I've tried about 1/2 dozen of these slicers; Oxo has the best one, find it here.
Cook bacon to a perfect crisp, and put aside to drip and dry.
Heat up the bacon fat just to the point before it will start smoking and then flash fry the jalapeños. Discard the bacon grease (or save for something else, if you're into that). Wipe the iron cast grill. You should know that you never use soap on these!
I got fancy with the cheese and made a cheese weave but you can do as you wish with yours. It was convenient for me because it was like a big fat slice of cheese so it would fit perfectly. I put this aside and prepped the bread.
Turn your heat to medium or medium low.
Get your bread and warm it up on the pan, let it sit on the skillet for 30 seconds at a time on each side and keep fliping it until you start getting a very light crust on it this takes 2 to 3 minutes. Add a light coat of butter or bacon grease to the sides of the bread that will be inside of the sandwich.
Put the cheese on top of the bread as the pictures show. On one side, top with a layer of jalapeños, on the other bread, add a layer of bacon. Let each piece of toast begin to melt with the cheese and its toppings.
Close the sandwich and let the cheese continue to melt. You can add a little bit of butter to the exposed side of the sandwich. Let it grill for 1 - 2 minutes, then flip and repeat the butter application. Repeat the flipping every minute or so until you have the cheese the way you want it.
Pull it out of the fire and cut it with a sharp bread knife and voila. This is the ultimate grilled cheese sandwich.
