Green Goddess Grilled Cheese

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day I bring you a holiday grilled cheese that's sure to leave a lasting impression (for better or worse).  You know I like to play into holidays when possible, but I don't like many of the traditional foods associated with St. Patty's Day (i.e. corned beef and cabbage), so a green grilled cheese seemed the order of the day.  Luckily, my friends are always on the lookout for me and my friend Whitney (who you may remember from the Crawfish Bread Grilled Cheese) sent me a recipe that fit the bill: the Green Goddess Grilled Cheese (original recipe posted here).  My only knowledge of green goddess dressing stems from my infrequent, but much beloved, trips to The Melting Pot where they serve up green goddess as one of the condiments with your entree.  I've always loved the green goddess there (requesting additional ramekins basically every time I go), so was excited to try it as the star of a tasty sandwich.

Not surprisingly, the ingredients are very herb heavy.  Something has to give it that green color, right?

1 clove garlic, 1 anchovy (skipped this-- no thank you on the anchovies for me), 1 tsp. lime zest, 3 Tbsp chopped parsley, 2 Tbsp chopped tarragon, 2 Tbsp cilantro (skipped this-- tastes like soap), 1 Tbsp chopped basil, 1 Tbsp chopped shallot (is that the same as scallions?  I hope so because that's what I got), 1/4 tsp Dijon mustard, 2 ounces cream cheese, 1 cup shredded mozzarella, 1 cup shredded cheddar, sourdough and olive oil.

Phew!  The ingredient list was long, but all of the items were very easy to find.  I was already feeling good about this one because it has two of my favorite sandwich components-- sourdough and cheddar!

Step one was mincing the garlic.  For this I employed my mini food processor :-)

We know I like to go overboard with the garlic, so I actually used more like 2 cloves.  Oh well!  Next came all the green components-- lime zest, parsley, tarragon (which smelled like spearmint to me), basil and shallot.  Since I was omitting the cilantro I did a little extra basil in an effort to maintain the right amount of herbs.  The mustard and cream cheese also went in and got blended up until it formed a nice green paste.

I then grated up 8 ounces of cheddar and 8 ounces of mozzarella and combined them in a mixing bowl.  A quick note on grated cheese-- it takes up more space by volume than not grated cheese (shocking, I know).  So in this situation with a recipe calling for 2 cups of cheese, I probably should have grated less than 16 total ounces to attain 2 measuring cups full of cheese.  BUT, I like cheese and to me 8 ounces means 1 cup, so that's what I went with.  To the bowl of cheese I added the green paste and mixed thoroughly.

Tasting this mixture I was overpowered by how pungent it was!  I think I forget that raw garlic is much stronger than cooked garlic, so I may have made a faux pas in adding more than the recipe called for.  The herbs weren't helping the situation either.  It was quite the flavor explosion.  With that in mind I decided to make 3 sandwiches as I had a feeling Colin would not a big fan of this one.

I brushed the bread slices with olive oil on one side and loaded the other with the cheese/green goddess mixture.  Closing the sandwiches with the second slice of bread left me ready to grill.  Since the filling was so dense I made sure to use my method of covering the sandwich with an additional (overturned) frying pan to trap in the heat.  I wanted to make sure that the cheese got gooey while it was cooking as I could tell this was destined to be runny!

Taste Review:

The first words that jumped to my mind upon taking a bite were creamy and STRONG!  The super pungent taste of the filling was only slightly dissipated during the cooking process, so it was still VERY strong, but at least a bit more piquant now.  The filling actually made the sourdough taste sweet by comparison, a feat that I didn't think possible.  In general, though, I felt like there were too many strong flavors all competing for top billing.  I think the extra basil and garlic weren't wise moves on my part as they both just slapped you in the face with flavor-- but then again, if I had lessened those quantities who's to say that another flavor wouldn't have taken over?  Overall I think this is best kept as a dressing since you're better able to moderate the amount you're eating.  Taken as an entree this is too strong for my taste!

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Green Goddess
Gooey-ness:	3
Aroma:	5
Appearance:	Looks like pesto or guacamole.
Taste:	B-/C+

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 year is the 1 year anniversary of The Big Grilled Cheese!  I'm sure some sort of retrospective will be in order.

Oh, and also-- happy belated Pi day.  I briefly debated a pie themed grilled cheese, but figured that might be hard to figure out, so I stuck with sipping on a drink filled with my Pi(ce) cubes :-)

In case you can't see that photo too well, here's the tray for proof: