When you suddenly realise it's 2pm and you haven't thought about lunch there's nothing that hits the spot quite so successfully as a cheese toastie. Particularly one made with proper bread and real artisanal cheese.
The trouble is that since tasting the legendary Trethowan's Dairy's toastie my home-made efforts seem to fall woefully short but yesterday's effort (seen above, half-munched, before I remembered to take a pic of it) wasn't bad.
I used the last of the Sparkenhoe red Leicester, a French Roscoff onion (there's posh!) and two thinly cut slices of sourdough bread, assembled the sandwich in a frying pan into which I'd poured some olive oil, flipped it over a couple of times then gave it 10 minutes in the AGA. (Absurd. The whole process took far too long but at least the onions were completely soft and mingled seductively with the cheese). It would have been a lot easier to have made it on my contact grill but the idea of hauling it out and cleaning it afterwards just for one sandwich seemed a real faff.
Sometimes I use a bit of butter in the pan which I think helps crisp and brown the crust and adds extra flavour.
What about you? What's your recipe for the perfect toastie? Should we have a cheese toastie comp do you think?
9 comments:
Completely agree, it's always satisfying to have a cheese toastie as a late lunch, worth keeping extra cheese in the fridge. Yes please to competition!
Oh I love a cheese toastie. Someone gave me a George Foreman 'fat reducing' machine they didn't want recently. I cook cheese toasties in it. It pleases me greatly that I am cooking a fat laden snack in a machine designed to make food more healthy. Works a treat n all.
Right, Sig, I think after Christmas to cheer up the dark days of January . . .
And I've found that with the George Foreman, grills Helen. Absolutely hopeless at cooking anything healthy like steak or raw tuna. Brilliant for burgers and cheese-laden snax
ooh, count me in, I love a cheese and jam toastie (don't laugh)...
Interesting! What kind of jam, Dom?
Well Fiona, the most basic combination I have absorbed from my mum is blackcurrant and double gloucester... this is the original and quite frankly the best... but the jam really acts like a pickle or membrillo, it cuts through the cheese... so any jam and cheese works well... the sweeter the jam the stronger the cheese... the combinations are endless... I love your blog by the way, very interesting and inspiring... you should come up to Louth some time, we have an amazing cheese shop run by a guy with such passion for cheese... plus we have some great local Lincolnshire Poacher! Dom x
I love cheese toasties fried in the pan too, the buttered toast has a completely different texture to the results of a toasted sandwich maker which squishes the bread so much. Those have their place, but pan fried is best...
I'm a big fan of Lincolnshire Poacher, Dom, and have an old uni friend who lives in Louth so perhaps I will. And will try your cheese and jam combo. After all they serve sheeps cheese with cherry compote in the s.w. of France.
Glad to find another pan-fried toastie fan, Kavey. Machines are not made for proper bread just squishy white slices
Living in Spain, I miss the real cheeses. A chunk of mature Cheddar, a glass of reserva Rioja and a side dish of spicy chutney and I am back home again. Ah bliss!
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