Colin's Jalapeno Popper

As mentioned, this was the week for my sous chef to take to the main stage with a creation all his own!  Finally the roles would be reversed-- I would sit on the couch watching TV while he worked tirelessly in the kitchen on a delicious dinner for us both :-)  That was partly true-- but I turned out to be more of a back seat chef than I thought I would be (i.e. "Maybe you'd like to assemble the sandwiches before you put them in the pan?")  But I like to think that my help was actually beneficial.  I had told Colin about some jalapeno/cheddar bread that I saw at Safeway that he might want to experiment with, so our first stop was the store to acquire other ingredients to turn this bread into a full fledged grilled cheese.  We ended up with the bread, pepper jack cheese, spicy guacamole and ground turkey.

Apron on and Kostritzer in hand (thanks, Mom) he was ready to attack!

The first step was grilling the turkey into patties.  I wasn't entirely on board with this step due to my bias against sandwiches that focus too heavily on the meat and not enough on the cheese, so I politely requested that I be allowed to make one meatless sandwich as well.  Colin gave the patties a splash of the Kostritzer just for the heck of it, but I'm pretty sure that probably cooked off.

While he worked on the meat I worked on slicing the bread.  The bread was too thin to slice vertically, so I cut it into four big slices that I then cut in half horizontally (so it was sort of the thickness of ciabatta bread).

I tried to scoop out the insides a bit to remove some of the heft and allow for us to put more ingredients in, but it wasn't quite thick enough for this to be really successful.  We also experimented with grilling just the bread in my rarely used sandwich press, but I don't think that really added much to the sandwich either.

From there Colin began his sandwich assembly... in the frying pan.  He started out with a bottom piece of bread and sprinkled a little pepper jack in the middle.  That was topped with a turkey patty.

Next came more pepper jack, also sprinkled in the middle on top of the patty.

And finally, a few dollops of guacamole.

For a beginner, Colin showed a surprisingly good command of the double spatula flip, which was particularly necessary for this sandwich seeing as how it was quite thick and heavy (thanks to the turkey patty).

While he worked on that, I went ahead and assembled my meatless variety, which involved a little more evenly spread ingredients.

Colin liked this approach and started preparing the remaining sandwiches for the pan.

The pepper jack melted surprisingly quickly, so the sandwiches were ready to go in no time at all!

Yummmm

Taste Review:

The bread was very crunchy-- probably because the jalapenos and cheese formed a hard crust on the outside to begin with and the hardness was intensified by the grilling.  I tried the variety with meat first and was surprised by now not spicy it was (part of this could be because I got the first sandwich-- the one with not too much cheese).  I guess there was such a thick patty of meat that it basically dulled all the spicy elements.  The guacamole consistency made the inside nice and smooth-- this along with the melted cheese were a good contrast to the crumbly/firmer meat. 

Then I moved on to trying my meatless variety.  This was VERY different in that my mouth was lit on fire with the first bite.  The pepper jack really takes hold and the spiciness is undeniable.  Since the goal of this sandwich was to keep it spicy, I liked this version more.  One way to potentially keep the meat on the sandwich and still maintain the spiciness would be to use less meat and spread it more evenly across the sandwich.  This was basically a burger, but if you had meat that had been seasoned with some spices and spread throughout the sandwich that would help to maintain the overall spicy flavor. 

I could take or leave the spicy guacamole-- but on the non-meat sandwich I actually think that regular guacamole would do better since it would provide just enough of a cool contrast to the strong heat from the cheese and bread.  I would also add some cheddar to the non-meat sandwich just to have another element in place of the meat (and I think it would look neat to have a green/orange/white layered sandwich) and to give the pepper jack something to contrast with.  But overall I'd say this was a success!

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Colin's Jalapeno Popper
Gooey-ness:	3.5
Aroma:	3
Appearance:	Bright green and white with a crispy cheese crust.
Taste:	A-

Gooey Scale	Aroma Scale
1 = still cold/hard	1 = can’t smell a thing
2 = slightly melted but still firm	2 = tender waft
3 = melted evenly	3 = makes your stomach growl
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)	4 = strong scent
5 = runny	5 = overpoweringly pungent
6 = sloppy mess!

Next Week: TBD, but potentially something utilizing my leftover ricotta and goat cheese from last week.