IPA and Cheddar Welsh Rarebit

Last week I got a comment asking whether I'd ever tried a Welsh Rarebit-style grilled cheese.  Given that, until last week, I didn't actually know what a Welsh Rarebit was, the obvious answer was no; but once I found out what this English pub dish entailed I was surprised I hadn't come across it sooner!  This sandwich (also called Welsh Rabbit) basically involves some sort of melted cheese mixture (usually cheddar with a variety of additives) poured over bread and broiled.  So really, it's quite similar to last week's sandwich that incorporated a sort of Swiss fondue mixture.  Being the fondue freak that I am, I was obviously very excited to give this type of sandwich a go. 

The article that my friend linked to in his comment indicated that there are any number of possible combinations that can be used to make this sandwich.  Given that there is a gourmet beer and wine store just down the street from me the possibilities were limitless!  Unfortunately, by the time we were ready to start cooking Sous Chef was already so hungry that he requested that we just use beer that we already had handy.  And no, I didn't take this chance to further diminish my unwanted stash of Miller Lite (going on 7 months residence in my fridge at this point).  We had one Sam Adams IPA left from a variety pack we bought awhile back, so using this as a base ingredient for our sandwich we brainstormed possible additives and complementary flavors.  Here's what we came up with:

Ingredients:
* Dijon Mustard
* Worcestershire Sauce
* Tabasco Sauce
* Flour (not pictured)
* Butter (also not pictured-- oopse)
* Sharp Cheddar
* Yellow Onion
* Bratwurst
* Pepperidge Farm Sourdough
* Sam Adams Latitude IPA

So let's dive right in.  I knew that I would want a sweet flavor to contrast the sharp cheddar and bitter IPA, so I opted for one of my all time faves-- caramelized onion.  I thinly sliced the onion and tossed it in the skillet with a few pats of butter.  Once the onions were pretty well coated with butter I covered them with the skillet's lid and let them cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they looked nice and caramelized!

But partway through the process we also added in the sausage (casings removed) so it would cook and pick up some of the onion's flavor.

While that was cooking I got to work on creating a basic roux by combining 1 Tbsp flour with 1 Tbsp butter.  Then, per the article's suggestion, I added 1 tsp Dijon mustard and 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce. 

Next came about 1/2 cup of beer and a few splashes of Tobasco.

Once that was decently blended I started to gradually stir in the grated cheese.  I used the whole brick of cheddar, which I believe is 8 ounces.

This part always makes me nervous because at first it looks like the mixture will be super watery and not fit for spreading on a sandwich, but the good news is that as you cook it a lot of the moisture cooks off and you're left with a perfect cheese sauce (even fit for nachos)!

Yum!  I opted to repeat last week's step of pre-grilling the bread so we would have a nice toasty feel going into the broiling (wasn't sure how much toasting a broiler would actually do).  So that just involved buttering both sides of the bread and grilling each side.  I left Sous Chef in charge of this and he lost focus partway through, so some slices got a little extra char.  Oh well.

Next up came the sausage and caramelized onions.  I'm not as big of a sausage fan as Colin is (and no, I'm not making an inappropriate joke), so I decided to just do cheese and onions on my variation.

So we added our respective fillings and then topped with plenty of cheese sauce!  And I mean plenty-- I only stopped because Colin literally pulled the sandwiches away from me and we still had cheese sauce left (which I opted to snack on with some bread bits in true fondue fashion).

Now they were ready for the broiler!  I was intrigued to see how orange the cheese looked despite the fact that we used white cheddar cheese.  I guess the mustard and beer are really doing their part to add some color.

I'd like to take this opportunity to confess my fear of the broiler.  Something about the fact that I can literally see a flame in my oven is scary to me.  My fear is legitimate as last week I lit a batch of s'more brownies on fire.  Yes, on fire.  Oopse!  Guess that will teach me to not use the top rack when broiling (or at least not when broiling something relatively flammable).  Anywho, I digress because this explains my slight failing over the next step.  The article I read didn't say how long to broil the sandwich, and I get scared of the broiler when used for any more than like 2 mins, so I wussed out and probably only left them in there for about 1:30 total.

Help!  My oven is on fire!

Obviously a longer broil would yield very different results, but here's what I ended up with:

OK, so it's definitely more cooked, but I'm not sure this is quite the effect I was going for.  I was envisioning those little bubbles that you get on pizza cheese that are sort of charred, but are extra delicious.  Oh well, the cheese was starting to run off of the bread and I didn't want to deal with the broiler any longer than necessary.

Once I topped the sandwich with the other piece of bread, this is what I got!

Taste Review:

Because we had pre-melted the cheese and pre-grilled the bread there was a decent aroma filling the apartment, but no direct aroma from the sandwich.  I tried a bite of Colin's version (with sausage) first.  The sausage is peppery and is the primary taste when you have a bite of that sandwich.  I preferred my version which was just cheese and onions.  The caramelized onions were really sweet, so they were a great contrast to the sharpness of the cheese mixture.  I could also taste a slight spicy kick thanks to the Dijon and hot sauce, but if you're a spicy food fan you'd need to add significantly larger quantities to feel fully satisfied there.  My bread isn't crispy enough, but that's because my version had the slightly less toasted pieces of bread and, obviously, neither sandwich had stayed in the broiler for too long.

Now let's talk about the cheese.  It was super strong, probably due to the fact that we used such powerful flavors in concocting the mixture.  We can't pinpoint which flavor makes it so sharp, but my money is on the IPA.  I think the bitterness of an IPA mixed with sharp cheddar makes for a perfect storm of sharpness.  This was that sort of sharpness you can feel in the back of your mouth that makes you super thirsty for whatever reason.  For that reason, the caramelized onions were a great choice because they were very sweet and could try to stand up to the sharpness of the rest of the sandwich, but I could've used more onions to really balance the flavors out.  And even though the cheese had started out super runny it began to re-congeal a bit as I ate.  Neither a pro nor a con, just an observation.

Sandwich:	IPA and Cheddar Welsh Rarebit
Gooey-ness:	4.5
Aroma:	2.5
Appearance:	Surprisingly orange for using white cheese.
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!

Rosemary Grapes and Swiss Fondue

I know the title doesn't actually sound like a grilled cheese, but I assure you it is.  This sandwich comes from The Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Academy whose recipes have been repeated hits (see: The Pilgrim, Onion Ring Grilled Cheese, and Brunch Grilled Cheese).  I was intrigued by the unique approach to this sandwich that got me thinking outside of the box in terms of how grilled cheeses can be prepared, so was looking forward to giving this one a try.  The sandwich also features grapes and two kinds of wine which, I felt, made it the perfect accompaniment for the wine and movie night that I was hosting that evening with my friend Megan.

Ingredients:
* 1 cup port
* 2 cups seedless red grapes
* Olive oil
* Balsamic vinegar (not pictured)
* Fresh rosemary
* Salt
* 4 ounces shredded Swiss cheese (in my case 6 ounces of Gruyere)
* 1 Tbsp flour (also not pictured)
* 1/2 cup dry white wine
* Crusty French bread
* Arugula

So let's get to it!  First off I put the port in a saucepan and let it simmer on low.  The recipe said for 10 minutes, but I think I had it set so low that it took longer-- but slow and steady wins the race (sometimes).  The ideal end result is a surypy port reduction.  This sounds fancy, but was actually pretty easy to make.

While the port simmered I went ahead with preparing everything else.  I put my 2 cups of grapes in a bowl and tossed them with 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt, and a sprig of rosemary (with the individual nettles removed and incorporated throughout).

I put those in a cake pan (any shallow baking dish will work) and added an additional sprig of rosemary on top (just for kicks) and baked them in a 450 degree oven for about 12 minutes.

The recipe recommends draining off the liquid, but I just let it all sit until I was ready to use the grapes.  Around the same time that this came out of the oven it appeared that my port had sufficiently reduced.

When I got a bit in my spoon it was definitely surypy in consistency, so I knew it was done (in fact, I worried that I over-reduced it, but oh well).

The only major step left at this point was preparing the cheese.  If you were using a brick of Swiss cheese and grating it then once it was grated you would need to coat the shreds in flour, but since mine was already grated it already had a sort of floury consistency coating it, so I skipped this step.  I warmed up my white wine in a saucepan on low (the recipe advises a double boiler, but since I don't have one I just hoped for the best using my saucepan).  Once it was warmed up I added in my cheese and stirred and cooked on low until the liquid had sort of cooked off/merged with the cheese to make a nice fondue-style sauce.

Now I was almost ready to prepare the sandwiches, but let's recall that I mentioned an unconventional means of preparation.  Rather than assembling the sandwiches and then grilling, this recipe called for grilling the bread before adding the ingredients (the cheese is already melted, so no need to re-cook it).  So I brushed the sides of the French bread with olive oil and grilled them up until they were nice and toasty.

Now I was ready to assemble the sandwiches.  First came a layer of the cooked grapes:

Followed by some arugula (Megan was skeptical of the bitterness, so we did half arugula on hers):

Then PLENTY of cheese sauce (yummmm):

And finally a drizzle of the port reduction:

And voila!  With the second slices of bread they were ready to be eaten!

Yummm! 

Taste Review:

I didn't notice a strong aroma aside from those created while cooking (melted cheese, toasted bread, simmering port wine).  I was worried that the grapes would be too sweet since they were such a big part of the sandwich, but they turned out to be just right.  The sweetness of the grapes blended well with the sharpness of the Gruyere and bitterness of the arugula. 

In fact, let's talk arugula a bit-- we all know it's pretty bitter, which is what led Megan to request that it be excluded from half of her sandwich.  But, she said that the bitterness is actually necessary to counterbalance the sweet grapes and sharp cheese, and that the portion of the sandwich with the arugula was much better (the part without tasted too cheesy).  She even went back and added arugula to the arugula-less portion of the sandwich.  I would agree that even though arugula is notoriously bitter, the bitterness doesn't stand out-- it just acts as a balance to the other flavors.

The port reduction is slightly sweet, but not as sweet as the grapes, so it neutralizes some of the excess sweetness.  The flavors reminded us of anything from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to a fancy salad (think pear and arugula), but in the end it was a unique (and delicious) taste all its own.

As for the cheese, I was a HUGE fan of the pre-melted variety.  We all know I love ooey gooey cheese (particularly in the form of fondue) and this was the epitome of that.  To have cheese literally dripping out of the sides of the sandwich was a unique experience, but a great one!  So I am sold on this alternative cooking method of melting the cheese and then assembling the sandwiches (although I'm not sure how well it would work if you weren't using Swiss-style fondue of some sort).

FINAL RESULTS:

 

Sandwich:	Rosemary Grapes and Swiss Fondue
Gooey-ness:	5.5
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Unique purple color that I haven't seen before (thanks to the grapes).
Taste:	B+/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!

Mushroom and Monterey Jack Panino

This week I continue to work my way through Great Grilled Cheeses with the Mushroom and Monterey Jack Panino.  I'm pretty indifferent about mushrooms, but I know I love jack cheese (and sauteed onions), so I felt pretty good about this one.

Ingredients:
* Olive Oil
* Sweet Baguette (no idea what this meant, so I just got a regular baguette)
* 8 ounces Monterey Jack
* Small Onion (thinly sliced)
* 1/2 pound button mushroom caps (sliced 1/4" thick)
* 1 Tbsp Fresh Thyme (or in my case, not fresh)
* Salt and pepper to taste

I started off by sauteing the onions in olive oil until they started to get soft and brown.

Once they were ready I added in the mushrooms and thyme...

and cooked until the mushrooms shrank/softened enough for me to consider them cooked.  GGC advises salting and peppering to taste, but since I'm not one to add salt to my food I skipped that.

That was literally it!  Easy enough prep-- just slightly time consuming given that each of the saute steps takes a few minutes.

While I was cooking my sous chef was grating the cheese and preparing the baguette by cutting it into four quarters and then cutting those quarters into sandwich style pieces.  Unfortunately we bought the ingredients for this one a few days before we actually made it, so the baguette had started to harden a bit, but you'd ideally be working with a fresher/softer piece of bread.  Remove a little of the bread from each section of the baguette to make small troughs for your filling.  First goes the mushrooms/onions:

Then pile on that cheese!  Literally.  You'll be smushing it together and into the bread in an effort to actually make it stay as part of the filling.

Next you just top the bottom halves with the other half of each bread section (which have also had some of their filling removed) and brush the exterior with olive oil. 

As I'm sure we all know (and as seen in this photo), baguettes are round, which means it's pretty tricky to get them to stay on one side while you're grilling them.  I had issues with them sort of rolling around in the pan (which meant that at best the sides were cooking a bit and at worst the sandwiches completely fell apart).  I combated this by putting multiple sandwiches in the pan at once so they could lean on each other, and by holding them still with my spatula until the cheese had melted enough to hold things together.  So this sandwich was a little more labor intensive on the grilling, but it was worth it to get a perfectly gooey sandwich.

Taste Review:

As you can tell from the photo, it sort of looks like a deli sandwich or cheesesteak.  I think it's because the bun is so big and the sauteed onions and mushrooms are common enough ingredients on deli sandwiches and burgers.

My reaction to the first bite I took-- it's good, but bland.  I think part of the reason I'm indifferent to mushrooms is because they don't really have a taste to me, so to have a bland veggie as the centerpiece of the sandwich makes for a sort of bland sandwich.  But the more I ate the more I realized that the blame for blandness doesn't lie with the mushrooms-- it's the bread.  The bread is so big and crusty that it swallows up any flavor.  I think a whole grain bread might be better for this sandwich.  By the end I had removed half of the bread and was eating it like an open faced sandwich, which made for a much better filling to bread ratio. 

The filling itself had some nice gooey cheese and I always love sauteed onions.  The mushrooms actually did have a little flavor thanks to the thyme, but it was very subtle.  I think the fact that the sandwich looks like a Philly Cheesesteak made Colin wish that it actually was a Philly Cheesesteak, so he wasn't over the moon for this one, but agreed that it's got good ingredients that just aren't used in the right way.  He agreed that we should try this again, but with different bread.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Mushroom and Monterey Jack Panino
Gooey-ness:	3
Aroma:	1.5
Appearance:	Looks like a Philly Cheesesteak.
Taste:	B

Swiss Melt with Bacon and Artichoke Hearts

As always, apologies for the lack of posts due to a busy travel schedule!  But I'm back with a sandwich that we actually made a few weeks ago and that I've just been too lazy to write about.  This one comes to us from Great Grilled Cheese. 

Has anyone heard that there's an impending bacon shortage coming to us in about a year?  Well, bearing that in mind it seems wise to go ahead with cooking the bacon-filled sandwiches sooner rather than later.  So let's get right down to the Swiss Melt with Bacon and Artichoke Hearts.

We started out with the following ingredients:

* 6-8 ounces Swiss cheese (Gruyere in this case)
* 4 slices of bacon
* 2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
* 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
* 1 jar (6.5 oz) marinated artichoke hearts
* 1 small onion (thinly sliced)
* Pepperidge Farm Sourdough
* Olive oil

First up we mixed together the horseradish and mustard.

And then started cooking the bacon until it was nice and crispy!

Once that was done I removed the bacon to let it drain on a plate with a paper towel and started cooking the sliced onion in the pan with the bacon grease until they were limp and starting to brown.

Once the onions were done the bacon had cooled enough for us to break it into chunks.

We also cut the artichoke hearts into quarters.

And with that all of the ingredients were ready!  To assemble the sandwiches we started by spreading the horseradish/mustard on four slices of bread:

Followed by the artichokes:

And the bacon:

And the onions:

And finally the cheese:



 

After completing the sandwich and brushing the exterior with olive oil they were ready to be grilled and soon were finished!

Taste Review:

Looking over the sandwich we first made note of the unique colors.  We haven't used artichoke hearts before, so their shade of green gives a new tint to the sandwich filling.  The bacon is a nice dark color to contrast the light onions, artichokes, and cheese.  In addition to providing some nice color contrast, the bacon also gives the sandwich a good crunch, which blends well with the creaminess of the cheese.

The onions are nice and sweet-- I never tire of using sauteed onions on a sandwich!  As for overall taste, I taste mostly artichokes while Colin tastes mostly bacon (although we did put more bacon on his sandwiches than on mine since he likes it more than I do).  For me the artichokes make it very savory even though the bacon and onions are both sweet.

I was a little nervous about using horseradish, but the horseradish/dijon wasn't strong at all.  I thought the spice would overpower all of the other ingredients, but it was actually just a nice enhancement to the other flavors.  On the whole this sandwich was reminiscent of the Italian Ham and Cheese.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Swiss Melt with Bacon and Artichoke Hearts
Gooey-ness:	3.5
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Colorful with a unique color in particular from the artichokes.
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!