- [Andrew] This episode of Basics with Babish is sponsored
by Bright Cellars, a monthly wine club that matches you
with fine wine you'll love,
and delivers it right to your door.
Bright Cellars is offering you 50% off
your first six bottle box plus a bonus bottle.
So follow the link in the description below
to take the quiz and get started.
The flavor profiles of these wines are going to pair
perfectly with the concept of today's episode,
advanced grilled cheese.
Let's get down to basics.
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(relaxed music)
All right, so first we must ask the essential question
what is a grilled cheese?
Despite the specificity of its name,
it is not necessarily grilled,
but rather a sandwich that is grilled,
fried, or toasted containing cheese,
bread, butter, and nothing else.
Purists will tell you that if you shove anything in there
like tomatoes, or ham, or even condiments like mustard,
you've disqualified your sandwich as a grilled cheese
and in fact have made a melt.
And the classic yellow American cheese
and buttered white bread combo
is immutably a perfect invention.
So how can we do something so bold
as to even attempt to improve
upon something which needs no improvement?
Well, we're gonna have to focus on technique
and bend the rules a little bit
by introducing some interesting cheeses
and flavors to the party.
Let's start with some best grilled cheese best practices.
You could use anything from oil
to mayo to toast your bread in,
but the undisputed reigning champ
10,000 years in a row is butter.
Ideally room temperature, softened butter.
You could melt some butter in a pan to get it on your bread
if you're in a time crunch, but soft, spreadable butter
like this enables you to get true edge to edge coverage
on the surface of your sandwich.
Next up cookware, the most ideal candidates
for which are nonstick and cast iron.
Lastly, the method.
I like to start my sandwiches on a cold pan,
which sort of helps the bread adhere
to the cooking surface and cook more evenly.
So we're gonna start by plopping
down our first slice of buttered bread in our cold pan,
laying down our cheese or cheese mixture of choice,
cranking the heat up to medium and keeping it there
until the sandwich is toasted on one side.
Give it the old flip-see-doo
and repeat until golden and toasted all over.
Once complete it's gotta cool for at least like a minute
before your delicate human fingers can handle it,
which I like to do on a wire rack
set in a rimmed baking sheet.
This both gonna prevent the crust from getting soggy
and is a great place to keep your grilled cheese warm
in a low oven if you're making more than one.
Then you know the rest, slice in half,
use your nose to scoot your knife out of the frame
like an adorable otter.
Kinda wiggle the two sides together
and press 'em into each other
if you wanna maximize your cheese stretch,
yank into two and devour.
Now, a few ways that we can have some fun
with this time tested format.
First up the inside out grilled cheese
that I know most of us learned from Chef John,
which calls for lightly grading cheddar
over the outside of your already buttered bread.
Toast and top up as normal, keeping a slightly closer eye
on things because this can burn more quickly.
Flip and finish on the other side,
and there you have it, the only way to make a grilled cheese
even more cheesy, by applying cheese to nearly every inch
of its internal and external surface area.
But what if we wanna change up
the cheese on the inside of the sandwich?
The vast majority of cheeses are not great melters.
The vast majority of cheeses just don't melt
as well as American.
If you click the link in the upper right hand corner
right now you can see how to stabilize almost any cheese
into a good melting cheese,
but otherwise we're gonna resort
to a very innovative method from America's Test Kitchen
that involves using a food processor.
This gives us the opportunity to emulsify together
cheeses with lots of flavor that normally
might not melt so well.
Case in point, aged cheddar.
Here we have seven ounces of aged white cheddar
that we're gonna place into the food processor
along with an excellent melter,
two ounces of rind removed brie.
We also need to up the liquid content
so we're gonna add two tablespoons of dry white wine
and process together for about 30 seconds to make a paste.
Then we can optionally add half a large shallot,
roughly chopped, tossing it in the food processor
and pulsing just a few times until it's incorporated
into the cheese mixture.
And there you have it, a super flavorful cheese paste
that's gonna behave a whole lot better
than any of the individual cheeses would on their own.
Once you've buttered your bread
you could pat this cheese mixture into a patty,
or just spread it straight onto the bread
if it's soft enough.
Toast up in the pan as usual,
and like all great grilled cheeses
by the time the exterior is cooked,
the interior should be gooey and melty.
And when I say gooey, with this version, I really mean it.
If you allow it to cool, it'll be a little less sloppy
but I love the lava like outpour of cheese that you get
from one of these straight off the griddle.
And it got me thinking how else we might be able
to use this technique to our advantage.
And the first thing that came to mind
was a jalapeno popper grilled cheese.
Over here I've got six ounces of monterey jack
and two ounces of mild white cheddar,
both excellent melters.
But something that is not an excellent melter
is one ounce of cream cheese,
which almost kind of curdles when you heat it up.
Anyway to emulsify our mixture
we need a little bit of liquid.
So this time instead of wine I'm adding two tablespoons
of Mexican beer, letting that form a smooth paste.
And then instead of shallots, one large jalapeno,
roughly chopped added to the food processor,
roughly processed.
And there you have it, our jalapeno popper grilled cheese
cheese paste filling, which I have to admit
is even delicious just on its own.
This time instead of spreading it using some gloved hands
I'm forming it into a patty,
pressing everybody down a little bit,
toasting as usual, flippin', scoopin', and servin'.
What I thought was an impossibility.
Translating the flavors and textures
of a jalapeno popper to a grilled cheese format.
Like I said, this will be less sloppy
if you let it wait, but I couldn't wait.
And sure I ended up getting doused
in burning hot cheese but it was worth it.
This one's goin' on my resume
right next to proficiency with Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Wow, my resume says I knew Linux?
I just straight up lied about that.
Next up let's try to put twist
on the inside out grilled cheese
with what I'm calling a double decker Welsh rarebit.
First, we have to make the beery cheesy topping
by sauteeing one small finely chopped shallot
in two tablespoons of butter,
adding one tablespoon of all purpose flour,
and two teaspoons of dry mustard.
Whisking into an uncharacteristically mustardy brew
which we're gonna use to thicken
a quarter cup of dark brown ale,
whisking constantly so as to not form any lumps.
Adding one tablespoon of wishy washeer sauce,
making sure that's completely incorporated
before adding 10 ounces
of good yellow English cheddar.
Whisk thoroughly until the cheese is fully melted
and you're left with a thick spreadable paste.
Which we're gonna cover
and keep warm until we're ready to use it.
Now you can do this for almost any grilled cheese,
but adding a teaspoon of mustard
to about four tablespoons of butter makes mustard butter.
Something that's gonna play real nice
with this grilled cheese.
I'm spreading our mustard butter on two slices
of hearty sourdough, placing down and pressing
in a cold cast iron pan,
arranging a few slices of young cheddar on top,
tearing off any overhangs and placing them in the middle,
no cheese gets left behind.
Toast that up as usual, maybe a little shy
of where you'd normally want it
because this guy is gonna be headed under the broiler.
Once toasted we are evacuating onto the usual wire rack
set in a rimmed baking sheet,
but we're now topping it with our Welsh rarebit mixture,
which is going to take a very brief one to three minute
stint under a broiler until bubbling and brown,
and ready to be eaten by our mouths.
I'm gonna cut this guy in half
and garnish with some optional chopped chives.
And there you have it, a truly inside out grilled cheese,
the double decker Welsh rarebit.
Rarebit rabbit, I don't really know how to say it.
Stretch it apart, take some pics for the gram,
and this guy's ready to eat
with a knife and fork or with your hands
if you're feeling bold.
I'm sorry, do I have something in my teeth?
No?
Okay, thank you.
Next and last, things are getting decadently French.
We're gonna start by caramelizing some onions.
You can buy these in the store
but they are better made from scratch.
However, they are time consuming,
about 30 minutes to do it properly.
Basically you wanna cook them over medium low heat
in a little bit of oil until they are a deep,
rich brown and have a soft jam like consistency.
I'd be perfectly happy to just eat this with a spoon
but it's gonna be even better on grilled cheese.
For our cheese filling
we have seven ounces of comte cheese,
which we're gonna cube up and combine
in the food processor with two ounces of brie,
and two tablespoons of dry white wine or sherry.
Which we're gonna do the whole process
into a paste thing, about 60 seconds.
Then this time I'll mix in about two tablespoons
of our beautifully caramelized and cooled onion jam.
Pulse that a couple of times
just to chop up and disperse the onions, and there you go.
This time our bread of choice is going to be brioche,
which despite being already very buttery
we're gonna generously butter on both sides with butter.
Then just like normal brie our sandwiches' rich flavor
is gonna be well complemented
with some nice tart fruit flavors,
and I think fig jam is the jam for the job.
Go ahead and spread a few tablespoons of that on there
before topping with a pressed patty of our cheese product.
Toast this guy up as usual and make sure that you saved room
for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert,
because this guy can handle being pretty much all three.
It is gooey, rich, cheesy, fruity, funky, fresh.
But that being said, brioche was a little bit
too delicate for this form factor.
So I think that this guy could benefit greatly
from the croque monsieur treatment.
That is we're gonna make a quick bechamel sauce
by melting two tablespoons of butter,
adding two tablespoons of flour,
and cooking and whisking for about one minute
until the raw flower smell dissipates.
And then slowly, and whisking constantly
adding about a half a cup of whole milk,
making sure to tiny whisk the mixture into a smooth paste
before adding any more milk to prevent lumpage.
Then all we gotta do is toast up another sandwich.
Hang on a second, I'm gonna try this grilled cheese
flipping method I've seen on TikTok.
You flip the pan over the sandwich,
and oh boy that was a bad idea to do with cast iron.
Why did this need a hack?
Was it that hard to flip a sandwich?
Anyway, this guy's headed onto a rack
set in a rimmed baking sheet
getting topped with our bechamel and broiled.
And I didn't think it was possible to make this
grilled cheese any more decadent,
but here we are folks, we did it.
And this is definitely a grilled cheese
that's going to need the fork and knife treatment.
Maybe even eating it off a plate, like a grownup treatment.
But any and all grilled cheese could always
use the Bright Cellars treatment.
Thanks again to today's sponsor, Bright Cellars,
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and delivers it right to your door.
This service is only for adults 21 and older.
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All you have to do is enjoy.
In this box I received a bottle of Humdrum Chardonnay,
a rich, full bodied, fruit forward Chardonnay
that I think is gonna go just perfectly
with our brie fig jam and caramelized onion grilled cheese.
Bright Cellars is offering you 50% off
your first six bottle box plus a bonus bottle.
That's seven bottles in total.
Follow the link in the video description
to take the quiz and get started.
(relaxed music)