What is grilled cheese?

lol @ "Baby don't melt me"

what if you do add stuff and that stuff is grilled halloumi and you call it the inception? Would that make it to reddit front page 10 years ago?

And here I thought this was going to be about whether or not you use Cheddar or American Cheese.

Also I learned recently that using mayonnaise instead of butter is superior.

I thought it was going to be about whether a grill was something that heated from below or above

adding avocado, bacon, hot sauce, mayo, egg...these are all good options

I definitely would stick to a more strict definition of just cheese and buttered bread. I guess substituting the butter with something else is ok. For anything else there are other ways to describe what you're eating.

If I make a grilled cheese and I add tomato and lettuce and a 1/3 lb. ground chuck patty to the mix, is it still a grilled cheese

yes, yes, no

it's a ruined turntable

it's a breville.

American cheese is not acceptable.

Cheddar is iconic but I can accept some grilled cheeses that have a blend of cheeses selected for both flavor and for their melting characteristics. Like, you can include monterey jack or gruyere or manchego along with your cheddar and I will not mind.

Get too far afield from that and you're making a different sandwich. Like, open-faced brie and prosciutto and raspberry jam on a baguette could work as a meal concept, but it's not the Platonic ideal I get in my head when I close my eyes and think "grilled cheese."

a ladle of ricotta between two roughly cut hunks of brioche

I don't think I've ever seen ricotta on a grilled cheese-like comestible.

I've seen edam and apples, fontina and crabmeat, fig and brie. I've seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.

Lettuce is madness. Lettuce needs to be cold.

Confession: I have sometimes enjoyed a sandwich of griddled cheese with added bacon and tomato - but I do not call it a grilled cheese.

― Ezra Kleina Nachtmusik (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, April 28, 2021 10:43 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Transferring YMP's post from the other thread, but the lettuce stays cold. You add the lettuce and tomatoes after the cheese has melted but before you put the two slices together.

before you... what?

You pan fry the sandwich open-faced, then you add the toppings, then put the one half of the sandwich on top of the other.

outlandish

You pan fry the sandwich open-faced, then you add the toppings, then put the one half of the sandwich on top of the other.

https://media.tenor.com/images/25d8b45c5dce9a92b35563cee8dc7286/tenor.gif

btw a block of cheese thrown on top of a charcoal grill is very good

get_out_cereal.gif

NB to non-Americans: this poll is about fried cheese sandwiches, not “grilled cheese”

i feel like there is a hierarchy of sandwich fixings, with proteins being at the top, and with meat/fish/meat-substitutes being at the top of the protein hierarchy. So, if the dominant sandwich fixing is cheese, and the sandwich is grilled, then it is a grilled cheese sandwich regardless of whether it is just cheese, or whether there is tomato, avocado, lettuce ... However, if you add bacon or ham, then cheese is no longer the dominant fixing, and the name of the sandwich changes to reflect the dominant fixing.

What if there is more cheese than bacon or ham? Bacon crumbles, diced ham...

What I want to know is: is a grilled cheese a hot dog, y/n

It's technically a savory cobbler

American cheese is not acceptable.

Cheddar is iconic but I can accept some grilled cheeses that have a blend of cheeses selected for both flavor and for their melting characteristics. Like, you can include monterey jack or gruyere or manchego along with your cheddar and I will not mind.

― Ezra Kleina Nachtmusik (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, April 28, 2021 8:28 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

American cheese can be great. People hate it because it is "processed", but every cheese requires a process to turn the milk into cheese. Some processes are just better than others, particularly if melted cheese is the goal. Go ahead and limit yourself to boiled-milk-and-lemon-juice-process cheeses. But know that your bread-and-cheese life will ultimately be less fulfilling than mine.

For the doubanjiang are yall using some kind of quick and dirty Lee Kum Lee type sauce or something fancier on import

You pan fry the sandwich open-faced, then you add the toppings, then put the one half of the sandwich on top of the other.

― peace, man, Wednesday, April 28, 2021 8:56 AM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i pan fry one side of each piece of bread, the inner sides of the sandwich, the sides which the cheese will be between. then add the cheese and fry the whole sandwich on each of the 2, not previously fried, sides

You really needed an "I'm British and the nature of grilled cheese has baffled me for years" option for this. I guess I'll just click 'other' to satisfy my desire for clicking.

it's just a cheese toastie made in a pan rather than a sandwich press!

voted the purist option

Beck's "Debra" isn't even an option in this poll, where it might actually be the correct answer

it's just a cheese toastie made in a pan rather than a sandwich press!

― 《Myst1kOblivi0n》 (jim in vancouver)

Valuable information, thank you!

I guess I'll just click 'other' to satisfy my desire for clicking.

new board description

can you make grilled cheese sandwiches without the bread

When I make grilled or toasted cheese at home, I generally use cheddar or Swiss. But a good ol' American cheese grilled cheese at a greasy diner, with a plateful of crinkle-cut fries and a Coke, is a perfect meal.

otm. Americans probably deserve the anti-american-cheese sentiment for their mostly racist anti-MSG sins. but it is still misguided.

i pan fry one side of each piece of bread, the inner sides of the sandwich, the sides which the cheese will be between. then add the cheese and fry the whole sandwich on each of the 2, not previously fried, sides

― 《Myst1kOblivi0n》 (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, April 28, 2021 12:52 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Impressive!

I wonder if you can fry the inner sides with the cheese on and just wait long enough for the cheese to brown and become removable.

can you make grilled cheese sandwiches without the bread

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

2 slices of halloumi with a Kraft American Single in between, *chef's kiss*

you lost me at Kraft

In 1916, Canadian James L. Kraft applied for the first U.S. patent for a method of making processed cheese.[5][6][7] Kraft Foods Inc. developed the first commercially available, shelf-stable, sliced processed cheese; it was introduced in 1950. The first commercially available individually wrapped cheese slices were introduced in the U.S. by Clearfield Cheese Co. in 1956.[8] These forms of processed cheese have become ubiquitous in U.S. households ever since, most notably used for cheeseburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches because of its ability to cook evenly, distribute/stretch smoothly, and resist congealing, unlike traditional cheddar cheeses. Competitors lobbied unsuccessfully to require processed cheese be labeled "embalmed cheese".

competitors otm

Canadian James L. Kraft

Ugh, I'm sorry.

i pan fry one side of each piece of bread, the inner sides of the sandwich, the sides which the cheese will be between. then add the cheese and fry the whole sandwich on each of the 2, not previously fried, sides

At first glance this seems next level, but don't you want some of that dynamic contrast between a crunchy outside and a softer inside?

was just thinking that bread might be a large cruton

undecided if that's good or bad

*crouton, turns out this one isn't a british thing

i pan fry one side of each piece of bread, the inner sides of the sandwich, the sides which the cheese will be between. then add the cheese and fry the whole sandwich on each of the 2, not previously fried, sides

At first glance this seems next level, but don't you want some of that dynamic contrast between a crunchy outside and a softer inside?

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, April 28, 2021 11:15 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the melted cheese will somewhat soggify/soften the toasted bread

My grilled cheese move: multigrain bread (melted butter on outside), swiss, a little taleggio to lube things up, then weight the top down with a second skillet and a full kettle for maximum surface area crispness. The inside is very cheesy and the outside remains crunchy.

I'd never even considered putting cheese in a toaster without one of these!

this is hilarious because I'm wondering who WOULD consider putting cheese in a toaster, period

these bags make it possible but also it strikes me as a very weird, counterintuitive thing to do unless you really want to fuck up your toaster

i pour Velveeta in a toaster and then I throw the toaster at the wall and I collect the resultant cheese that drips down onto two intact pieces of bread which I then put in another toaster

Sounds fussy IMO. I just eat a lot of cheese and then go sit in a sauna.

is that where the term "dick cheese" came from

sounds fondue me

Just get a toaster oven, people

Where am I going to put a toaster oven?

I'll tell ya where

Interestingly (?) toaster ovens are not a really a thing in the UK.

You don't even need a toaster oven, just a pan and a stove, idgi

i feel like there is a hierarchy of sandwich fixings, with proteins being at the top, and with meat/fish/meat-substitutes being at the top of the protein hierarchy. So, if the dominant sandwich fixing is cheese, and the sandwich is grilled, then it is a grilled cheese sandwich regardless of whether it is just cheese, or whether there is tomato, avocado, lettuce ... However, if you add bacon or ham, then cheese is no longer the dominant fixing, and the name of the sandwich changes to reflect the dominant fixing.

― sarahell, Wednesday, April 28, 2021 4:33 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

^^^otm, sarahell 100% correct

it's a good breakdown that brought needed clarity on this topic

mixing your toasties only really becomes a problem when moving up the protein pyramid

or when tharn

I remember what seemed like massive walks across norfolk in the summer of either 73 or 74 being aware that mixamataosis was effecting rabbits locally to where we were.

Fewer fluffle silflay?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I voted purist. While adding other items might result in a sandwich you enjoy more, your sandwich thus becomes a 'grilled cheese and tasty slops' sandwich, disqualifying it from the straight and true 'grilled cheese' category. (sings the doxology)

voted you can add stuff to it, but if you add meat or some other protein it ceases to be grilled cheese and becomes a ham sandwich

This is a long thread I can't be arsed to read but surely grilled cheese is cheese that has been grilled? And by that, I mean halloumi (the local fruit and veg shop actually sells a non-PDO version of halloumi called "grill cheese")

Oh, you mean a cheese wumbly! Okay

Probably 'pan fried cheese' mosy commonly.

Not in this thread: ghee instead of butter, which some co-worker suggested to me years ago and I now do exclusively.

Some years ago in San Francisco, grilled cheese was a bit of a fad. In that era, I decided adding thin slice of tomato was tops.

xp Aimless: i don't see anything purist about adding butter. that's grilled cheese on buttered toast. purist would be bread + cheese + grilled.

grilled cheese + tomato = cheese & tomato sandwich? Like, that's a separate sandwich. I was super into them for the decade I was a vegetarian. Def otm about that being tops

I think you can add vegetables/non-protein items and it becomes a "stuffed grilled cheese" (will also select "deluxe", or perhaps "fortified"). But agreed that as soon as you add a protein, the cheese gets demoted.

should have named the tuna melt "gilled cheese"

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Aimless: i don't see anything purist about adding butter.

Your objection has been noted.

i've hated this argument since it became a thing on reddit - though unlike the pointless "is a taco a sandwich" arguments i at least get the utility, and i get being frustrated that the subreddit that's supposed to be for grilled cheese accepted a bunch of straight up sandwiches-that-happen-to-have-cheese on them. the problem is the original "call it a melt" guy insisted on creating such a strict definition of "grilled cheese" that it really defies any sensibility, and redditors, who are by nature inclined to obey someone giving them new rules to follow.

i would move that a grilled cheese should be defined as any buttered, grilled sandwich where melted cheese is the primary filler. sarahell said something similar, but i disagree that any protein at all inherently overwhelms the cheese. i would definitely say that most grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato and bacon, the two popular additions, are still going to be grilled cheese sandwiches because typically neither the tomato or bacon is used abundantly enough to overwhelm the primary grilled cheese ingredients.

coincidentally i've been making a lot of grilled cheese lately, because i saw a picture of one a few weeks ago and thought "wow, i've somehow never made grilled cheese in my life, i should do that" so i've been working on it. i butter the inside of the bread and mayo the outside, which i was scared to do originally but it really does work without imparting any disgusting mayo taste, and i use either cheddar or muenster or a mix (we always had muenster in the house growing up so that's what my mom typically used - it's a great grilled cheese cheese). i also started putting goat cheese in between the melting cheese because i had some in the fridge, though i wonder if that would still be considered a grilled cheese under the strictest ruleset? goat cheese doesn't really melt, it just gets warm - it doesn't fuse with the melting cheeses, it remains its own ingredient. it sticks out. is that really so different than a thin layer of tomato?

then i started throwing salami in too. just one layer, in addition to the goat cheese, in addition to the muenster and cheddar. this was really delicious. it was still a grilled cheese though. if i had you over and served it to you, you wouldn't mistake it for anything but a grilled cheese sandwich, because the inherent grilled cheeseness has remained fully intact and dominant. if you said otherwise, you'd be lying to yourself and you'd know it.

sounds like you’re talking about a fried cheese

ah fuck

most grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato and bacon, the two popular additions, are still going to be grilled cheese sandwiches because typically neither the tomato or bacon is used abundantly enough to overwhelm the primary grilled cheese ingredients.

uh, as someone who was vegetarian for almost a decade, if I saw an item on a menu listed as "grilled cheese" and in the ingredients it listed "bacon" ... I would be super annoyed. It isn't about the protein as protein, it is semantically related to common dietary restrictions.

sure, if you choose to semantically define grilled cheese through the lens of dietary restrictions, but who decided that's the angle? and if a restaurant offered grilled cheese with optional bacon and/or tomato for an additional fee, as they often do, would the sandwich stop being grilled cheese because you got the add-ons or does it become a "bacon and tomato melt"

(and as someone who was vegetarian for 18 years you can just ask for it without the bacon)

sarahell is right (of course), and also identifies the correct diagnostic test.

The way to solve categorization problems is usually of the form "if I asked for ____, and you brought me ____, would I be pleased or puzzled?"

Is a hot dog a sandwich / is cereal a soup / is a Pop-Tart a calzone / is a veggie wrap a salad / is a torta a ravioli? For all these questions see above.

Similarly, "grilled cheese" = bread/cheese/bread. Butter/mayo/ghee does not change this equation.

If I want tomato on it I will say "grilled cheese with tomato." It's an add-on that doesn't change it into a completely different sandwich.

If I want tomato and bacon on it I will say "grilled cheese with tomato and bacon." These add-ons don't change it into a completely different sandwich.

***BUT***

Past that you get into territory of completely different sandwiches. Put ham on it, for example, and you're in the zone of a ham and cheese sandwich, which is its own type of sandwich. You're no longer dealing with something that people would recognize as a "grilled cheese" by the criterion above.

Of course all this is very well laid out in the minutes of the famous Treaty of Sandwich, brokered between the Earl of Sandwich, the Duque del Torta, and La Contessa della Calzone in 1753.

The way to solve categorization problems is usually of the form "if I asked for ____, and you brought me ____, would I be pleased or puzzled?"

cooking exists without restaurant menus anyway. i reject the idea that any cooking terms should primarily be defined through the terms of the broken and grotesque restaurant industry!

If I want tomato on it I will say "grilled cheese with tomato." It's an add-on that doesn't change it into a completely different sandwich.

If I want tomato and bacon on it I will say "grilled cheese with tomato and bacon." These add-ons don't change it into a completely different sandwich.

as far as ham and cheese sandwiches go, i would only argue it's a ham and cheese sandwich if it has more ham than cheese. and 99% of ham and cheese sandwiches are going to have some layers of ham. if there are one or two slices of ham between a large mountain of cheese, that's a grilled cheese with ham.

how do you feel about tipping?

If I requested a grilled cheese and was brought an Egg McMuffin-like assemblage, a Cuban sandwich, or a medianoche, I'd be puzzled but would still eat it.

xp i look down on blasphemous non-US nations for not partaking in our most beloved cultural expectation

afaic a grilled cheese is an approximation of a welsh rabbit and any closer it gets to the beer-soaked worcestershire-sauced delicacy the better

It also has to be vegetarian or else the "rabbit" joke loses all meaning

if a restaurant offered grilled cheese with optional bacon and/or tomato for an additional fee,

the key here is "optional" -- the default is no bacon, as opposed to "grilled cheese (includes bacon)" where you have to ask to omit the bacon ... then it is a Bacon & Cheese sandwich. It doesn't matter how much bacon is on it. It doesn't matter if it's bacon bits. It is not a neutral food item that just gets to be left out of the title of the sandwich ... like say, onions, or lettuce. There aren't significant cultures that have "don't eat lettuce" as a dietary prescription!

welsh rarebit/cheese on toast grilled with hot sauce, some red onions and maybe some sliced cherry tomatoes, made with blue stilton, cheddar, chesire, red leicester, spicy mexican style cheese. That's what I like.

*in addition to vegetarians

Yes to both of you, stilton is a top tier cheese

What I learned on Wikipedia today: "Daniel Defoe in his 1724 work A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain notes, "We pass'd Stilton, a town famous for cheese, which is call'd our English Parmesan, and is brought to table with the mites or maggots round it, so thick, that they bring a spoon with them for you to eat the mites with, as you do the cheese."[8]"

lol!

Of course all this is very well laid out in the minutes of the famous Treaty of Sandwich, brokered between the Earl of Sandwich, the Duque del Torta, and La Contessa della Calzone in 1753

I think it was France being left out of this Treaty that led to the Seven Years' War.

And there's still no French word for sandwich.

Josefa, good point. France of course has the excellent croque monsieur / croque madame and their relatives, but these are better classified as ham and cheese sandwiches rather than grilled cheese.

https://www.distractify.com/p/one-dollar-grilled-cheese-truck

read that as "grilled cheese fuck" at first

That costs extra