Garden Goat Cheese

As mentioned last week, I was looking for a sandwich this week that would allow me to use the rest of the loaf of Pepperidge Farm Sourdough that I had leftover from the Italian Ham and Cheese.  I also mentioned that there are a lot of recipes that feature goat cheese and that maybe I would give one of those a try.  Lucky for me there are actually two recipes that feature BOTH of these ingredients!  I randomly selected the Garden Goat Cheese as this week's lucky winner and was off to get the ingredients.

6 ounces fresh goat cheese, 1 teaspoon milk (or more if needed), 1/4 cup finely chopped green onions (white and light green parts only), 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel, 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, 1/2 cup loosely packed watercress leaves.  Note: Ignore the semi-sweet chocolate morsels in the background-- I was simultaneously doing some baking for a work pot luck.  Additional note: I didn't really know what watercress was prior to working on this sandwich aside from knowing that it's sort of a snooty-pants food.  Oh well, maybe this will be a snooty-pants grilled cheese!

Step one was combining the goat cheese, milk, onions, lemon peel and pepper to form a paste that has a consistency akin to "thick frosting."  I had left out the goat cheese from the time I got home, meaning by the time I was starting to cook (~2 hours later) it was nice and soft and easy to mix with other ingredients.  I recommend doing this because goat cheese takes awhile to warm up to room temperature and if you try to mix up cold goat cheese it won't stir in with the other ingredients as easily.  Chopping up the chives and grating the lemon peel were pretty uneventful, so into the bowl everything went.

This is where you can use your discretion in terms of amount of milk to add.  I opted to throw in an extra splash because the mixture wasn't quite creamy enough after my initial stirring.  Again, though, this is where letting the goat cheese warm up to room temperature before starting will work in your favor.  Were the goat cheese not room temperature it certainly wouldn't have the consistency of a thick frosting.

The resulting mixture looked a heck of a lot like the tasty whipped sour cream and chive cream cheese that I eat on my turkey sandwich for lunch every day (yumm, I'm enjoying some right this very minute as I type these posts up during my lunch break).  This definitely didn't taste like cream cheese, though.  That biting goat cheese taste is unmistakable!

Next it was time to spread the mixture on four slices of bread (buttered on one side, buttered side down).

I was surprised by how much cheese I had for each slice of bread-- the end amount on each sandwich was actually a pretty thick layer.

Next came the watercress leaves.

Obviously these were topped with a second slice of bread and popped in the pan.  GGC advised to cook these on a particularly low heat because it takes so long for fresh goat cheese to warm up.  Luckily I was well on my way having let the goat cheese warm up to room temperature already, but I cooked them low and slow in the name of letting it get even more thoroughly warm and melty.

As usual, the beloved Pepperidge Farm Sourdough did not disappoint!  It grilled up so perfectly golden brown that I couldn't wait to dive in and taste the deliciousness!

In fact, before moving on let me show you a photo that is a pure testament to the glory of Pepperidge Farm Sourdough:

Oh baby!  Yum yum!
(sorry this is sideways, sometimes the blogger photo uploader does that and I have yet to figure out how to fix it)

Taste Review:

Before even tasting the sandwich our initial reaction was that, much like the Italian Ham and Cheese, it seemed kind of light and understated.  But then I reminded Colin that this was made with goat cheese and that there is nothing understated about the bitter/pungent taste of goat cheese.  But in reality the sandwich was pretty light-- it made me think of spring (cheesy, I know, but also true).  The goat cheese wasn't so strong that it made me want to stop eating, it actually blended well with all the other ingredients. 

The lemon flavor is definitely pronounced (it's hard to ever ignore the smell of fresh lemons), but it doesn't overpower the rest of the sandwich, it's more of a background aroma.  The same was true for the onions-- they didn't slap you in the face, but you knew they were there.

I was glad that I heeded the advice of cooking the goat cheese slowly and on low heat because it was nice and soft/creamy.  The sour-ness of the sourdough proved that it could stand up to the sour/bitter flavor of the goat cheese, so there was a good balance there as well.

I was enjoying my sandwich as I noticed Colin making a move for his beloved Sriracha.  *sigh*  He noted that he doesn't think that this should count as a "grilled cheese."  I reminded him that according to our recently determined definition of grilled cheeses that this is, in fact, a grilled cheese.  He conceded that point, but said that he felt this cheese was more of a spread than a sandwich filling.  "I could see this on a cracker," he said.

Regardless, we both were satisfied with the sandwich.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Garden Goat Cheese
Gooey-ness:	2.5
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Looks light, fresh and springy.
Taste:	B

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!

During our grading session we determined that we wish we could revise some of the older grilled cheese grades.  I've found us relative grading more and more lately because sandwiches we've made recently that deserve to out-score some of our less liked older sandwiches have to be given a higher grade so it's not tied with something bad.  I may be explaining this poorly, so let me give you an example.  Colin was thinking a B- for this week, but when I reminded him that we had given a B to one of the salami and cheese sandwiches he agreed to raise the garden goat cheese's grade to a B.  I wanted a B all along, so I was happy, but can see where this relative grading may prove detrimental in the future.  I'll keep my eye on it to see if it becomes a problem that's big enough to warrant being addressed.

Next Week: I'm out of town, so potential field report on the way!  Although I haven't researched any locales yet.  Anyone know of a good grilled cheese spot in Atlanta?  I've also got one other field report related trick up my sleeve that I will hopefully share next week before I go out of town.

Speaking of field reports, I didn't do one while I was in Richmond this past weekend, but my friend Jessi enjoyed a gourmet grilled cheese at 3 Monkeys (a Richmond restaurant). 

From their menu: 3 cheese grilled cheese- brie, swiss & monterey jack with bacon & tomato on rye.  She opted to substitute avocado for the bacon and it looks like that was a good call (and slightly reminiscent of the beloved California Grill.

Italian Ham and Cheese

Without giving too much away up front, let me just say that this week we were solidly back on track after the grilled portobello and provolone incident.  This week's sandwich is the Italian Ham and Cheese.  The French Style Grilled Ham and Cheese from back in April was successful enough, so I was hoping to be met with similar luck courtesy of France's southeastern neighbor.

As always, gathering the ingredients was step one.  This week we needed a loaf of sourdough, 6 ounces Fontina (they recommend Italian Fontina, but this is harder to find than its Danish counterpart, so I took what I could get), 1/4 pound pancetta, olive oil, butter and one large leek.  I had never tried leek before, but in my head I was equating the taste with fennel-- which I hate.  I'm not actually sure where I got that idea because it is absolutely not the case.  A leek is basically a big scallion and I loves me some onion, so once I realized this was the case I was fully on board for the sandwich.

Step one: cut the white and green parts of the leek into thin strips until you have about 6 ounces.  Having never cut up a leek before I had to sort of improvise.  I decided the best approach would be to cut it much like I would a scallion.

This worked well enough, but left me wondering why I needed a "large leek."  I only cut up part of it and still had more than enough to fill my measuring cup (1 cup = 8 ounces so that was already 2 more ounces than the recipe called for).  But it's alright!  I like onions!

I tossed the sliced leeks into my frying pan along with ~2 tsp. of olive oil and let them cook "until they were limp but not brown."

I know they don't look much different, but I promise they had a more limp texture at this point in the game.

Next it was time to cook the pancetta, so I set the leeks aside and distributed the pancetta slices around my frying pan.

I always get nervous when I cook bacon-like foods in my frying pan because I'm not entirely confident that the grease from the bacon aids in keeping the bacon from sticking to the pan.  I know the non-stick capabilities of the pan are supposed to prove useful here, but I always end up with some crusty bacon bits left behind when I cook.  Oh well!  If it's for the good of the sandwich then I'm willing to sacrifice my time and clean an extra dirty pan later.

I think this may have been the first time that I successfully cooked bacon without burning it!  I was very cautious to remove the pancetta as soon as it had turned a "deep golden brown" and not once it had turned into "a dark brown charred mess."  While the bacon cooled off a bit on a plate I took the liberty of wiping out (but not washing) the frying pan.  I'm always skeptical of this step (again, because it leaves a crusty film on the bottom of the pan that somewhat detracts from the non-stick properties), but I suppose it's important to maintain that residual bacon flavor.

Once the pancetta had cooled a bit I chopped it up into bacon bits (this had already started to happen in the pan, so I just needed to give a few more chops to get it to a good place).

Now it was time to make the sandwiches!  I started off with four slices of sourdough buttered on one side (buttered side down) with the 6 ounces of Fontina spread evenly between them.

Next came the leeks:

And finally, the pancetta bits:

Once those were topped they were ready for cooking!  Things went pretty smoothly during the cooking process save for the fact that having several small pieces as sandwich toppings made it tricky to flip the sandwich while keeping all the pieces inside.  Things got a little messy in the pan, but since the bacon residue was still all over the place it wasn't a big deal.  Especially because I got a finished product that looks this delicious:

Taste Review:

There wasn't a strong aroma unless you got right up in the sandwiches grill-- luckily eating a sandwich means you are doing just that, so I would say the sandwich gave off an aroma of light onions and buttered toasted bread.  The initial appearance reminded Colin of a BLT-- probably just because of the bacon bits.

Upon tasting, the first thing I noticed was how creamy the cheese is!  I actually wasn't paying attention too closely to the notes I was writing while eating and ended up saying "cheese is creamy" twice, so it must be true.  It had melted very well and had a light enough flavor that it made its presence known without slapping you in the face (unlike some other cheeses...sharp provolone, I'm looking in your direction).

The best way for me to describe this sandwich is "understated and elegant."  It had a delicate balance of flavors that worked well together to make a rich taste without making you feel like you were over-indulging.  The leek gave just the right amount of onion flavor without leaving a stinky onion taste in your mouth for hours to come.  Add to that the light salty/sweet pancetta and you've got a delightful treat.  If you wanted the flavors to be stronger you could certainly add more onion and/or pancetta, but I think this was the perfect balance to keep things light and tasty.  Colin and I both finished our sandwiches quickly and probably would have wanted more had it been available!  So by the "did we finish?" indicator, this was a winner.

One aside is that this sandwich made me realize how truly important good bread is.  I'm not sure what it is about this Pepperidge Farm sourdough, but every sandwich I've made using it has been tasty!  It toasts very evenly and has the perfect sourdough flavor without being too chewy or overly sour.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Italian Ham and Cheese
Gooey-ness:	3.5
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Delicate look with little bacon bits and soft green leeks.
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!

Hooray!  What a comeback from last week's near failure!  Not sure what we'll be trying next week-- we've got several recipes left that involve goat cheese, or maybe I'll find one that uses the rest of the sourdough loaf I bought, or maybe both!  Stay tuned to find out!

Portobello and Provolone

It's a good thing that when I was pondering the definition of a grilled cheese awhile back that I didn't specify that a grilled cheese must include bread, because that would mean this week's sandwich is not considered to be a grilled cheese.  Portobello mushrooms instead of bread?  That's crazy talk! 

This is one of the lucky few sandwiches to have its photo featured in GGC and its unique appearance led me to both anxiously anticipate and slightly dread the week when I would finally tackle this bad boy, but the time has finally come.

I arrived at Wegmans and immediately rolled right past the bakery section (a very strange feeling) and headed straight for the produce (another strange feeling-- I definitely don't buy fruits and veggies as often as I should).  The recipe called for EIGHT portobello mushrooms (since they would be serving as the bread).  Portobello mushrooms are pretty huge, so my taking eight of them immediately depleted a good part of the mushrooms display in the produce area.  Luckily everything else was standard grilled cheese fare:

Beefsteak tomato, 8 ounces sharp provolone, 2 ounces asiago, salt, pepper, oregano, 1/4 cup olive oil and 3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar.

The most involved process where this sandwich is concerned was preparing the mushrooms.  Step one was wiping some of the dirt off the cap of the mushroom and removing the stem and gills.  Ew.  I didn't know that mushrooms have "gills," let alone that they felt all weird and velvety.  I didn't really know the best way to go about removing all of this, so I sort of improvised.

Step 1: Cut out the stem.

Step 2: Scrape off the gills with a small knife.

Step 3: WASH YOUR HANDS!! These gills are gross and just made my hands all dirty.  Taking the dirt factor into account, I tasked sous chef with giving the mushroom caps a bit of a wipe down before we proceeded.  The finished products looked a little something like this:

While I was working on the mushrooms, sous chef was mixing up a little marinade for them comprised of the oil and vinegar (and salt and pepper to taste).

I think we can all see where this is going.  Once the mushrooms were all ready, on went the marinade:

I erroneously poured the marinade on the underside of the mushrooms.  Upon realizing my mistake, I just flipped them over and rubbed some on the tops as well.  Turns out this was actually a better approach as this allowed both sides get a little piece of the marinade action.  I let those sit for 10 minutes before transferring them to a cookie sheet for 10 minutes in the oven (that had been pre-heated to 400 degrees).

Once the first 10 minutes were up I flipped all the mushrooms over and put them back in for another 10 minutes.  Here's what they looked like when they were all finished:

Whew!  I could literally see the steam rising off of them.  While the mushrooms were in the oven, I took the liberty of grating the provolone and asiago.  I took a taste test of each and was NOT a fan of the provolone.  I guess the added sharpness gives it too pungent of an after taste for me, but this was just not good.  I crossed my fingers that the asiago would balance drown the provolone out and proceeded.

Since I wasn't entirely confident in the taste of just the provolone I decided to make two sandwiches according to the recipe (with both provolone and asiago) and two according to my recipe (just asiago).  That way I'd have something to fall back on if the provolone was really too much.  So I put 2 ounces of provolone and 1 of asiago (per sandwich) on two of the sandwiches and 3 ounces of asiago (per sandwich) on the other two.

I then topped every sandwich off with a slice of the beefsteak tomato and sprinkled some oregano on each for flavor.

At long last, these boys were ready for the frying pan.  I'm not sure if it's because the mushrooms had already been cooked, because of the natural brown color or just because of their unique texture, but they didn't seem to burn at all in the pan!  I could hear them sizzling and see the cheese starting to ooze, so I knew they were cooking, but I was fortunate to not have to worry too much about potentially charring them.  I appreciated the ease of grilling considering the involved process I had endured to get the mushrooms ready for cooking.  Once they were all grilled up I was ready to dig in.

Taste Review:

The VERY first thing anyone would notice about this sandwich is the pungent smell.  Something about the combination of the strong cheeses and the mushrooms creates an aroma that is unmistakable (although it's up to you whether it's a good or bad smell).  First we tried the provolone and asiago variety-- Colin took about 1.5 bites before determining that he couldn't eat anymore.  Admittedly the texture is VERY weird.  GGC describes this sandwich as "as beefy as a non-meat sandwich can get-- it's hearty, mushroomy and definitely toothsome."  Well, I would agree and would venture to say that this isn't a good thing.  The mushrooms are so dense that when combined with a tomato and cheese it's too much to take in all at once.  You need some softer bread to break up the heartiness of the ingredients.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much the tomato slice actually helped to balance out the sharp cheese-- after tasting the provolone and asiago

I finished about 1/3 of the asiago/provolone before opting to switch over to the all asiago variety.  There was definitely a noticeable difference between the two.  In this case the tomato is less obvious and the cheese is stronger, but since it's the cheese I liked better I didn't mind.  However, this wasn't enough to make it a clear favorite of the two choices.  I can't actually decide which I thought was better-- both are just slightly different but are ultimately on par in terms of taste.  If I were forced to choose I would pick the all asiago variety because even though the cheese was more pronounced, the taste on the whole was milder.  But ideally, given the choice, I would choose to not eat either.

They're just messy and pungent and full of flavors that I don't particularly like.  You have to LOVE portobello mushrooms to like this sandwich and neither Colin nor I feel that way about them.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Portobello and Provolone
Gooey-ness:	6 - by FAR the messiest yet
Aroma:	5
Appearance:	Crazy looking!  Runny and brown-- where's the bread?!
Taste:	D+

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!

Yuck-- not a successful week for us.  Let's hope that next week we'll get back on track.