Hacking Extreme Grilled Cheese

Even if you have been a reader of my blog and fan of Cast Iron Guy since it’s very early days, chances are high that you didn’t know me before the pandemic.

I used to be a guy who spent ten to twelve hours per day either downtown, or transporting to and from downtown for work. My home kitchen was something that was reserved for Saturday pancakes, Sunday dinners, and a few home-cooked meals each week between when we we’re dashing about here, there and everywhere.

But the last two years has set a lot of people up with new routines, lifestyles and habits.

I not only started baking a lot more sourdough bread, but my kitchen also got regularly used for the preparation of lunchtime meals: quick foods to be cooked and consumed in time to squeeze a walk in with the dog before heading back to the computer for work.

It’s probably not surprising then that I started making a lot of sourdough grilled cheese sandwiches. Quick, easy, and filling.

It’s probably also not surprising then that I got very bored very quickly with standard cheese on grilled bread fare that is the obvious grilled cheese sandwich recipe for most fans of this dish.

Don’t get me wrong: the classic bread, cheese, butter, heat combo is still a tried and true standard for any time and anywhere.

Yet, even greatness risks becoming mundane in high enough volume. It didn’t take too many months of pandemic-days working from home before I found myself experimenting with this great recipe, bending the rules, pushing the boundaries, and testing the limits of what could be grilled on or between two slices of bread and still taste good and not stray too far from this formula. Simple grilled cheese was no longer sparking my culinary curiosity the way it had, even with fresh sourdough and a hot cast iron griddle to work with.

Now, as much as I’d like to make this a simple post with a great recipe for readers to follow I think the point here is that culinary curiosity and creative cooking is not something that is reserved for highly trained chefs nor does it required elaborate recipe bending.

It can be something as simple as trying new things with something as standard as a grilled cheese sandwich. Adding ingredients (like in the attached photo which includes a fried egg, ham and hot sauce into a tasty grilled sandwich) or changing the order of things (like putting the cheese on the outside of the bread!)

Creating extreme versions of your favourite meals is about pushing the edges of the recipe, understanding what makes it work and cook properly all the while testing the edges of what could make it better, tastier, spicier, crunchier, more satisfying, or changing any variable that makes you happier cooking and ultimately eating it.

My comfort in doing this came from the simplicity of the standard grilled cheese sandwich which is tough to ruin even with a mediocre chef at the helm, but simultaneously can take on new tasty twists even with minor adjustments. It’s a safe food on which to experiment.

My joy came from pushing the boundaries of grilled cheese, changing the cheeses, dusting with spices, and adding or substituting other layers… but still ultimately grilling cheese inside buttered bread on my cast iron griddle.

It is said that in order to learn how to fix something, take it apart and break it first. I learned how to fix computers as a kid by frantically trying to repair the damage I did installing games, trying to get the machine working again before my parents found out. It seems some kind of similar sentiment exists in cooking: learn to fix (or improve a recipe) by taking it apart, breaking it, and trying to make it better. Hacking it.

I didn’t break the grilled cheese sandwich, but during the pandemic the grilled cheese sandwich broke me … enough that I wanted to pull it apart and make it into something better, if only for myself. I wanted to hack the recipe into something more exciting, something more extreme.

I think it worked.

I think it’s still in the works and probably will be for a long time.

Recipe: Cast Iron Breakfast Hashbrowns

I’ve eaten breakfast in many places around the world, and its fair to say that anywhere you wake up to a meal that place probaby has it’s own style of morning eats that defines it as a culture.

At home, I tend to spread a little jam on some toasted slices of sourdough bread and munch on that while I sip my fresh brewed coffee.

But I wouldn’t exactly call my toast a ”Canadian Style” breakfast.

I’ve long had an affinity for breakfast as a meal. In my previous job my boss liked to host Friday morning meetings at the local greasy spoon diner with a plate of runny-yolk eggs. Our running crew is affectionately named the “Breakfast Run Club” because we often meet outside a breakfast place for a run followed by a morning meal. I’ll be the first to wake while camping specifically to get a start on a hearty skillet-fried breakfast. And lacking a better option for another meal of the day, I’m happy to repeat breakfast for lunch, dinner, supper, or even an evening snack.

But what defines a ”Canadian Breakfast” is tough to say.

The local fast food chain A&W, famous for their root beer and hamburgers, jumped with both feet into the breakfast market about a decade or so ago and differentiated themselves from the ‘egg on a muffin’ chains by serving a fresh, plated, ”Canadian” breakfast, probably based off of any of those greasy spoon places I mentioned previously. I’ve indulged more times than I care to admit, and it’s probably as close as I can come to appropriately pinning down a breakfast that defines the country culturally.

What’s on that plate?

A pair of eggs (any style), two slices of toast, some crispy bacon strips, a duo of breakfast sausages, a pair of fresh tomato slices, and a patty of hashbrown.

Any of those items listed are foods I’d claim a confident level of skill to make… except one.

The hashbrown, as much as it’s just fried potato is finicky to get right at 7am.

the ingredients

1 or 2 medium potatoes, grated
half a small onion, chopped or grated
1 egg
15ml vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste

the make

The grated potato needs to be washed (to rinse out a lot of the starch) in cold water and then patted dry on a towel. The egg and oil need to be beaten lightly together. Then all the ingredients can be mixed in a bowl until a thick and even potato slurry of a sort is ready to cook.

On a hot cast iron grill, I like to use my large flat top plancha, spread the mixture into a large flat slab, no thicker than a pancake.

When the edges of the beast start to brown and crisp, you can portion it into more managable chunks with the edge of your metal spatula, then flip and grill the other side until both sides are crisp and the interior is cooked to your desired doneness.

The result is kind of fried mat of potato. It’s not much of anything like the industrially shaped discs of deep fried starch madness that one would get at a local fast food place, but it’s very much like the hash served at some of my favourite greasy spoons.

Tho as much as I can cook eggs to nearly any style and have master techniques for near-perfect bacon (and shouldn’t even need to mention the almost flawless sourdough loaves I’ve been baking lately) the perfect hashbrown is still not quite on my list of confident culinary skills. I suppose if I want to be a Canadian breakfast master, I’d better fix that.

Recipe: Classy Cordon Bleu

The recipe has a different name in our collection, but as the kid pointed out half way through her portion last night “this is basically just fancy cordon bleu, right?”

She pronounced it with an impeccable French tongue, too. I guess ten years of French Immersion school has finally paid off.

But she’s not wrong.

Or, at least, not too far from correct.

Anyone familiar with the already-kinda-fancy dish cordon bleu knows that a bit of chicken breast is rolled or stuffed with some ham and swiss cheese, spiced, breaded and baked. It’s a tasty bit of chicken dish with a surprise, creamy filling.

This slightly upscale alternative (which we poached from some long forgotten YouTube cooking channels) is a bit of chicken rolled or stuffed with some fancy ham (prosciutto) and some fancy cheese (we used some boursin herb and garlic), spiced, skipped the breading, and baked.

Our classy version hits the same notes as the original: savoury chicken, a warm creamy inside, but adds some unique notes that bring it up to an elevated, but still cook-at-home, quality.

Plus I get to use my big Staub braiser.

the recipe

4 slices butterflied chicken breast
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
4 tablespoons soft herb cheese
8 slices prosciutto
4 tablespoons sun dried tomatoes
8 pieces fresh basil
2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup chicken broth

After combining the salt, pepper and paprika into a rub for the chicken breasts, coat with the seasoning and lay out on a surface. The chicken is “stuffed” with a layer of each of the soft cheese, prosciutto, sun dried tomatoes and fresh basil, rolling it into a tight coil and holding together with a skewer or toothpick.

In a large cast iron braiser (or using a frying pan and a baking dish) fry the rolls about a minute per side in a bit of oil, then pour the mixture of the lemon juice and chicken broth into the braiser (or baking dish with the chicken) and bake for about 15 minutes at 425F, turning once.

Smoked Chops

When I was younger our summers always meant smoked pork chops.

I didn’t appreciate it much at the time, but my father had access to bulk buy cases of delicious, thick chops direct from the local processing facility. He did this once per year, ensuring that in our chest freezer lived a cardboard box containing about forty of these special treats, setting our family up for seven or eight really great summer meals.

Then I moved away, went to University, lived my life, started a family, and…

It turns out that these specific smoked meats are not as common in the local grocery store as my easy access to these delectable slabs of not-quite-pork chops seemed to be in my youth.

It also turns out that my wife had a similar experience growing up. Her family also caught the summer vibes of a slab of smoked pork. Her youth was also one of barbecued pink meats and camp meals made from this exclusive, elusive delicacy.

The ties that bind us, eh?

What’s up with smoked pork chops anyways, you ask?

Well, imagine a regular pork chop, but infused with a subtle smoky flavour resembling bacon, edging towards the succulent tenderness of a slice of ham, and all grilled over the hot flame of a barbecue or to a tasty crisp finish in a cast iron pan. Moist. Aromatic. A piece of meat nudged towards the perfection one imagines from a great barbecue, but heated and ready to be eated in less than fifteen minutes.

For some reason we were lamenting our inability to find these chops locally in recent a family conversation. Then last week it was my wife’s birthday. Not thinking anyone remembered that first convo, well, it turned out I was wrong… in a good way. Her folks showed up and (jokey gift kind of people that they are) cracked open a cooler full of smoked chops.

It turns out that if nostalgia could set off the smoke detector as it cooks in a thin layer of hot oil, my nostalgia would be shaped like a pork chop.

It was as good as I remembered. And I appreciate it now.