Holed up in our Boston Avenue house Friday, with Boston under lockdown as law enforcement searched for the Marathon Bombing suspects, a pair of housemates and I coped with the crisis by crafting a few variations on easily the most comforting sandwich in existence: The grilled cheese.
I'm not going to tell you the best way to make a grilled cheese sandwich. Truth is, there's no one perfect way to make a grilled cheese. As long as you use good bread, good cheese and make sure the cheese is melted through, you're going to make something delicious. It can be as simple as just bread and cheese or spruced up through infinite combinations of toppings and condiments.
If you're reading Between the Slices, chances are you know what you're doing, grilled cheese-wise. And you might have an intimate relationship with your specific recipe for one of these scrumptious melty 'wiches. So I'll try not to impose my grilled cheese values. What I will do is share the grilled variations my housemates Alden, Danny and I came up with on Friday. Our options were somewhat limited by the lockdown, but the results were pretty darn tasty and provided a small respite from a tragic, horrible few days.
Ben: cheddar, Gruy?©re, cream cheese, raw red onions, pickled jalapenos, and sauteed prosciutto on sourdough, panini-pressed
My strategy was to create the richest sandwich possible, with big flavor and cheese that oozes all over the place. The cream cheese was the key here: it ensures the ooze factor, contrasts the acidic kick from the pickled peppers and brings some fattiness to the scene. The prosciutto adds a crunch and saltiness that pushes the whole sandwich to an almost obscene level of pleasure. The sourdough bread stands up to the panini press and keeps the sandwich structurally sound. This is not health food but, within the realm of grilled cheese, if you're trying to make it healthy you're not on the right track.
Alden: crumbled goat cheese, shredded Monterey jack, roasted garlic and caramelized red onions on multigrain, panini-pressed
Alden's sandwich features a creative combination of textures and a nice contrast between the sweet onion and salty, crispy garlic, both of which he cooked in a pan with a bit of oil. This grilled cheese also allowed Alden to show off his impressive array of knife skills. The one problem was the bread. We didn't have any crusty sourdough left, and none of us was willing to drive to a grocery store amid the citywide lockdown to buy the crusty loaf Alden had requested. The panini press crushed the soft multigrain bread he did use, and all of the exciting flavors got sort of lumped together.
Danny: crumbled goat cheese, pesto and "herb" turkey on sourdough, baked at 375 degrees in a toaster oven for seven to eight minutes
Danny's sandwich is simple and effective. He makes it numerous times a week, always the exact same way. I think that adding tomatoes to this sandwich would be a strong play, but at this point Danny's an old hand at the goat cheese-pesto game, and refuses to tinker with his formula. This sandwich is not technically a "grilled" cheese, since it's baked in a toaster oven, but baking it ensures that the cheese gets melted evenly. We're not sure what herbs are in the turkey, which we got at Trader Joe's, but any deli-style turkey will do. The rich, oily pesto and tangy goat cheese are the stars, here, fusing together to create an ultimate comfort-food bite.
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Ben Kochman is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at Benjamin.kochman@tufts.edu and on Twitter @benkochman. Watch the video version of this column on Jumbo Slice or on The Tufts Daily's Youtube page.
