Grilled cheese should be... crunchy.
Cheese, I guess.
Creamy in the middle.
If I'm feeling in a
good mood I will put a slice of tomato in it.
I'm really into stretch.
No crust.
It's all about crust.
Just a little bit salty.
Herbs.
People use bread that the cheese leaks through...
The grilled cheese: a culinary staple of childhood. It's
gooey, delicious, and best of all simple. My recipes never ventured too far from
two pieces of white bread stuck together by some American cheese but that's all
you need, right? Well, imagine the possibilities if you approached this
simple sandwich with years of culinary knowledge and expertise and attempted to
make the ultimate grilled cheese? And, oh yeah, you only have one hour and you're
going up against three awesome kids.
I'm Dave I'm the food tech expert. I build
equipment for restaurants and bars, and I'm the founder of a food museum.
Hi I'm Frank and I'm the cooking expert. Started out at culinary school, became a line
cook, worked my way up through restaurants in New York. I figured the
best thing I could do is try and bring up the next generation of chefs and
teach here at ICE.
My name is Carol and I'm the cheese expert. I own a cheese
shop. Selling cheese, lifting cheese, cutting cheese, unpacking cheese, eating cheese all day.
I like my grilled cheese no crust and just cheese, I guess.
I've only had three
grilled cheese in my whole entire life and two of them my grandma burnt.
I'm excited but I'm nervous because like get in there and see all these ingredients, I'm like
"whoa." The only ingredients I've ever used for a grilled cheese are bread and cheese.
Growing up we ate tons of grilled cheese, it just
happened to be one of those things that as kids we can make ourselves, without
burning the house down. I bake all the time. I usually do apple
things? Apple crumble, apple pie, apple strudel, apple puffs.
I once made a cake with
frosting. My brother is also really good at making cakes.
Hmm I don't know who
said that because I'm a horrible baker...
You don't actually need to know any science
or tech to make a great sandwich, but if you know what's going on behind the
scenes it can help you get results faster and it can let you do some fun
things that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise.
The only thing I care about is cheese.
I think that just kind of understanding what everyone thinks is a
good grilled cheese is a good start. I think a good grilled cheese: crispy on
the outside, soft and like stringy almost on the inside, should have some pull to
it. I think there should be a mix of cheeses, not just one, that's just my
opinion. I think for me on a grilled cheese that two things are kind of how
much cheese, right? Then whether it's gonna be stretchy or fully melted out.
And then kind of the smash level on the bread. Personally I like a high smash
level, you know? I mean I push really hard. I think it should be an all-over crust
of sear, with butter. Butter is always the answer. See, I use mayonnaise.
oh man I use mayonnaise on fish but not in grilled cheese. No, mayonnaise
on the outside of a grilled cheese instead of butter is really good. What about mayonnaise and butter?
Well maybe we can try both.
What about... should we use mayonnaise?
No!
People like it in grilled cheese!
I like a rye,
you don't want the rye with the seeds, I mean the kid's
not gonna like rye for sure. I would go personally I like the more rustic
Italian bread. You know I'm all for the straight, white Pullman.
White Pullman, okay. I'm not against the white Pullman
because again if you talk about that childhood grilled cheese, it's kind of like
okay, white Pullman.
White bread I think is the best
because -- What about that bread?
That's white bread!
It's whole wheat.
I like gruyere a lot,
I would like gruyere in a grilled cheese for myself but I'm not gonna give gruyere
to a kid. Yeah, there's a little too much funk. A lot too much.
But what if you had like a little bit of gruyere grated
and then a lot more something else. Maybe not funky but sharp
I talk a lot about
this at the shop when people ask for cheese that's sharp and usually what that
means to me is that it's a cheese that's made specifically to be high acid like
cheddar to ship or travel and what that means is it's a cheese that just doesn't
melt while the pH is too high. So if you're making a grilled cheese and it's
a really aged cheddar and it's too high acid it's just not gonna give you the
right melt. You got to go for like a little bit of a lower ph cheese. And then
something that is like either too acidic or aged too long the casein structure
has been broken up over the long aging such that it might melt out but it's not
gonna be cohesive at all.
Let's see how it tastes.
It has a smokiness to it. That's so good.
This is our no pile, and this is our yes pile.
That's disgusting.
Oh my gosh it's so salty.
Maybe like Gouda or something like that. Am I saying Gouda wrong? No no I would
never say "how-duh". Because you're not pretentious.
Wow that's good, it's in the yes pile.
Now let's try this! That's American cheese, we are not using that.
I don't mind
if some cheese leaks out and caramelizes on the pan. Those crispy bits of cheese
makes it something even more spectacular. So you don't want a completely
homogeneous melt like you would off of like a processed cheese? So you don't want
to bring like, for instance, emulsifying salts and kind of
make our own block cheese. No no no, we don't need any of that. No sodium citrate on that one.
We definitely should add the smoked mozzarella, that's number one.
Cut the tomatoes, like dice them throw them in, take a little bit of our herbs
and spices. Yeah we should use the herbs we got.
I heard the kids talking earlier I
got a little inside information that they wanted to put tomatoes and they
went to the garden to pick some herbs. I'm not a purist but I don't think I
don't like tomatoes in my grilled cheese. Tomatoes a moisture management problem.
if you roast the tomatoes and dry them a little bit and then put them in so that
they don't water out your sandwich, great. I don't think they're gonna do that. I don't think herb is gonna add anything the cheese can't handle.
Hey, what should I do with the herbs? Just... mush them up? Yeah just like rip them.
You want me to grate something? Let's grate that. And then we'll do a slice of the other two.
Can we add half of the cheddar into there? The mixture?
I think this is looking good.
We also didn't talk about
temperature, I feel people don't use temperature control, they use too high a
temperature, and then the bread gets too brown before you melt.
Just melt it a little and then I think you're right we should press
down a little. That's fontina comte? Or all three? All
three. That's a triple threat, that is a triple threat grilled cheese sandwich.
I'm a little
worried that there's not enough cheese. Can I put this back on now?
No no not yet not yet not yet. Oh.
This combination of cheese is salty enough to not require salt in the bread?
Remember now ,the mayonnaise has a little salt and a little vinegar. is there butter that we need to
Is there butter? We need to put a little bit of butter on, and then what you're gonna do flip it over with
the butter.
Should we put some of the comte on the outside? Oh interesting.
I also think it's a little flat. Doesn't it need a little salt or something?
I don't think it's ready yet. No we need to
put it on top, but trust me it'll be ready.
So salt and pepper on the inside...
Yeah a little bit, I don't want to freak them out. So are we good, are we decided?
I'm good if you're good. I'm good I love it.
Now that our team's cheesy creations are complete, it's time
to see how they taste. Our esteemed judges include - a professional
restaurateur, a young grilled cheese fan, and a very tall guy who we may have
promised free grilled cheese to in exchange for staying late to shoot this video.
So we have a grilled cheese on rye bread, with fontina and cheddar in the
middle, Comte on top which is caramelized. There's a little bit of mayonnaise, black
pepper, and some cornichon to kind of cut the fattiness of the sandwich.
Flavor's good, I'm not sure I'm getting the flavor of all three cheeses her.
I wouldn't mind if the cornichons were actually in the sandwich, but pretty good
sandwich. I don't really taste much black pepper but
this is honestly really good. Crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside, a little smoky.
Today what's inside, you have smoked mozzarella and cheddar cheese. There's a
little bit of tomato as well as a mixture of herbs that we have harvested
from the garden over there, thank you ICE. Everything on there is edible including
that pepper stuffed with our mixture. Our raw mixture.
so I like how they didn't put just cheese and they added some other stuff.
I think I want more cheese on this. The hit of tomato inside was a good move and over and
above I think it's pretty tasty.
I'm gonna have to go with the expert grilled cheese. Purely texture.
It was cooked better. Crispy on the outside, gooey on the
inside, enough cheese. The expert cheese was cooked better. I thought it lacked
some acidity. I'm gonna have to give it to the to the Challenger. The thing I
like about the first one was it's gooey which is what I liked about it.
The thing that I liked about this one, the detail is amazing. But what I also liked
is that they added some more stuff to the sandwich like they didn't just put
cheese they added like some tomatoes...
I'm gonna give it to them.
Great job guys, congrats.
I want a rematch.