Bingo 17: Funky
The Great Grilled Cheese Book contains some funk; funky cheese (I’m thinking the ‘blue cheese’ chapter, and kind of a relaxed funk (as in the music style) vibe in general. I know the author, Chef Eric Greenspan, from tv, and he seems like the chill sort of guy who would (and did) put together something that is more like guidelines as opposed to strict recipes. So, onto the cheese.
Probably the coolest thing in the whole book is a recipe for diy American slices, and given the ingredients, it doesn’t look that bad: cheddar, mozzarella (both shredded), hot milk, melted butter, and some tapioca flour for that eventual texture. If you use a decent quality cheddar, this could be really good. And as we all know, proper grilled cheese must have melty cheese, and that’s about the only thing standard American cheese is good for.
On the funky side, I don’t typically like blue cheese and several of the combinations are kind of predictable like steak and blue cheese, buffalo (fried chicken strip and hot sauce) with blue cheese; neither specifies any particular type although the only one I’d be likely to try (‘the good and proper’) specifies a specific creamery, although the intro notes “another good-quality smoked blue will do” if you must; the rest of the sandwich includes maple bacon, tomato slice, red onion slice, and pepperoncini, all on a standard white bread. I’m not a huge bacon person (don’t @ me), but this still sounds like it could be really good.
Cheddar cheese is probably my favorite and the section for that sounds mostly fine, although I don’t quite understand the whole tuna melt thing; it’s just never been appealing to me. But what’s basically broccoli-cheddar potato sandwich, and “johnny apple cheese” (guess the key non-cheese there), sound worth trying.
Two things I don’t like as well: firstly and mostly, I don’t get that a book that is diy enough for all the spreads and even your own American slices doesn’t get more technical or specific about the bread, and second, why is it called “grilled cheese” when you don’t actually grill the sandwich, you fry it? No one pulls out a grill for just a cheese sandwich, unless it’s a countertop George Forman kind of thing, and I admit, that’s a prime grilled cheese maker as long as it’s not too thick a sandwich, which I suspect most of this book would be. But seriously, all the instructions, every time, say something like, take out your skillet, melt butter, add sandwich’; that’s frying the sandwich (or at least the bread) in butter, not grilling it. I don’t diss the method, but the label is kind of not technically what you’re doing, right? Maybe it just sounds better.