Friday 21 February 2014

Which Sandwich are you? {Week 1 of the Grilled Cheese Transformation}

This is terribly important!

Go here and do the quiz "Which Sandwich Are You?" The best online quiz in history (please comment below or on Facebook which sandwich you are, because let's face it, civilisations are built on this kinda stuff).

I am very proud to say I got Grilled Cheese which according to the quiz (and to me) is:

"the best f’ing sandwich in the whole entire universe." 

To celebrate this achievement I thought I might undertake a 12 week challenge. A bit like Michelle Bridges 12 week Body Transformation .....only not. I will call it the 12 week Grilled Cheese Transformation.

Have you seen the 31 grilled cheeses that are better than a boyfriend doing the rounds on Facebook? Well I have taken my favourite 12 and each week, for 12 weeks I am going to make one and take pictures and tell you about it. Quality blog content my pretties.
Week 1: The French Onion Soup Grilled Cheese from Tastespotting

There were a few variations- I wanted bigger sandwiches so I used a Tiger cob loaf and I added a bit of dried chilli to the onions (and I used red wine in the onions).

 Four medium sized onions made enough for about 4 large sandwiches

Making proper caramelised onions was a bit of a revelation. I have tried in the past, but not cooked them for long enough or became impatient and added a bit of brown sugar to help the caramelisation along. It is definitely worth the time and effort to come up with these beautiful naturally sweet silky onions.
You can never have too much cheese.....
Pan-frying the sandwich instead of putting it in a press is also a revelation- fluffy white on the inside, crisp and buttery and crunchy on the outside.
I teamed it with a simple rocket salad dressed with white wine vinegar and olive oil and sprinkled with toasted chopped almonds

 Grilled cheese rating: 3.5/5

The sandwiches were super tasty with a bottle of 2011 Condie 'The Max' Shiraz- very juicy and showing quite high acidity due to early picking in a debacle of a wet and rainy year; the acidity cuts through the hugely buttery cheesiness of the sandwiches beautifully. I am cellaring this baby for sure, lovely now, it will be magical in about 3 years. Contact the winery for stockists.

And we watched "Frances Ha" because grilled cheese sandwiches should be an event and without a movie and wine they are just grilled cheese......

PS. If you have eagle-eyes you will see that the bottle in the picture is the 2010- I had a sneaky unlabelled tasting bottle of the 2011 but a picture of an unlabelled bottle isn't going to help you recognise it in the store :)

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