The ingredients are pictured above, but in the name of accuracy I'll recite them. One loaf of ciabatta bread (but when I went to the grocery store they had sold out, so I got some pane Italian bread instead), 4 ounces goat cheese, 12 ounces mozzarella (I mis-read this as 16 oz... oopse!), 3 large strips of bacon, olive oil, a tomato and two Anaheim chiles. Deelish!
Reading the first few steps left me certain that this would be a labor intensive sandwich, and it had me diving in with the most daunting task of all: grilling the chiles over an open flame (aka one of my gas burners... apparently a broiler is also acceptable, but less fun).
Ooooh, pretty! The pyro in me was excited! The apartment owner without renters insurance in me was worried I would burn the place down (I just narrowly escaped this fate a few weeks ago courtesy of my toaster oven and was not anxious to re-visit that state of panic).
Annnd here we go! Standing over the stove waiting for the outer skin of the pepper to char completely. But it was taking forever to start! I mean 30 seconds later there was still no sign of charring! (I'm so patient) That's when I decided to just touch the flame with the pepper. I heard a scary pop, but I guess that was just air getting released once the skin burned or something, because upon closer examination I saw that I was actually right on track.
A few minutes more the first chile was ready!
Next I placed it in a "re-sealable plastic bag" where it was to sit for 20 minutes (I imagine this is to allow the smoky flavor to really set in). Once I had both chiles in I started the timer and commenced with other prep work while I waited.
Task 1 was frying the bacon! The recipe actually calls for 6 strips, but since these strips were so big I went ahead and just got 3.
I let these simmer for awhile (while I went ahead with grating the mozzarella and slicing the tomato). I was supposed to cook them until they were crispy, but since I never cook bacon apparently to me "crispy" actually means "burned."
Oopse! Oh well, the plan was to coarsely chop them anyway, so they're really supposed to be like bacon bits-- and bacon bits are hard, right?
By the time I finished with the bacon, the chiles were ready to emerge from their plastic bag hideout. GGC directed me to remove the charred outer skin with a small sharp knife and to cut the chiles into long thin slices.
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| Chiles and Bacon Bits |
I got kind of wussy on the bacon and only used maybe half of what I had cooked (and considering that was already half of what the recipe called for I was definitely skimping). But oh well! It's my kitchen and I'll alter recipes if I want to!
Next came the goat cheese. The recipe called for four ounces of crumbled fresh goat cheese (split evenly among the four sandwiches), but this was A LOT! It barely stayed on the sandwich without falling all over the place.
So I didn't end up using all four ounces, but I got pretty close. Next came a light coating of olive oil to the outsides of each sandwich before tossing them in the pan. These required a lot of squishing with the spatula to try to keep them flat and together, but they flipped surprisingly easily! Maybe that was due in part to the slight bacon grease residue (I emptied out most of the grease, but left a light coating for flavor purposes).
I was pleasantly surprised by two things: 1) that the mozzarella actually melted very well and 2) that the crustiness of the bread helped to prevent it from getting too charred during cooking (as we all know, that's a perpetual problem for me in my constant war with the gas stove).
At long last we were ready to eat!
Taste Review:
As I'm sure you can tell from the picture above, the colors in the sandwich were the first thing that jumped out at us! Bright red tomato, lime green chiles, bright white goat cheese, brown bacon-- definitely aesthetically appealing. We could also smell the bacon and, even though I'm not a huge bacon eater, I can't deny that bacon smells amazing!
The first few bites tasted strongly of tomato and cheese. Goat cheese is just a hard flavor to get past, so that was definitely dominating. The combination of the melted mozzarella and the goat cheese was VERY creamy, but not in that it was literally gooey, more in that it had a rich and smooth flavor (especially when combined with the cool tomato).
Although this creaminess was nice, I think it was missing the contrast that the chile and bacon were supposed to provide. For whatever reason (maybe because I didn't use enough bacon?) I couldn't get a strong enough smoked flavor from these additions. Again I think this goes back to the fact that the goat cheese has a very pungent taste that is hard to get past. Towards the end of eating, Colin actually scraped the goat cheese off of his sandwich and said that he enjoyed it much more as a result. I would agree that the goat cheese is an unnecessary addition to the sandwich and would like to try the sandwich without (or at least with less) goat cheese sometime.
As a random aside, this actually reminded me of the salami and cheese sandwich from a few weeks back-- the one with ricotta, mozzarella, pepperoncini and salami. This had a similar consistency and flavor profile, but with some minor tweaks to make it more "American."
FINAL RESULTS:
Sandwich: | Smoky Southwestern Grill |
Gooey-ness: | 3 |
Aroma: | 3 |
Appearance: | Bright and colorful! |
Taste: | B+ Without goat cheese B- With goat cheese |
I've said it before and I'll say it again, it was a good place to start, but the recipe could use some tweaks to really make it outstanding.
Next Week: My sous chef is out of town, so if there are more seafood related recipes you can rest assured that I'll be making one!
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