Grilled cheese sandwiches to knock your socks off

BY W. WAYT GIBBS
Associated Press

When I was a child, I thought like a child, I ate like a child: PB&Js, BLTs and grilled cheese sandwiches made from slices of Velveeta melted to gooey perfection between two slices of skillet-toasted white bread.

But when I became an adult, I put away childish things. I grew out of Velveeta and Wonder bread. Grilled cheese sandwiches, however, are forever – assuming you know how to update them for a more grown-up palate.

Begin by using better bread. In place of the squishy white stuff, try something with more substance: a flavorful sourdough, sweet brioche, or crunchy baguette, for example. Buy a loaf, and slice it yourself into slabs about half an inch think (or halve the baguette lengthwise). The slices should be substantial enough to hold everything together but not so bulky that they overwhelm the flavor of the sandwich.

Next, add some interesting texture or flavors to the filling. Thin slices of sweet apple and spicy jalapenos complement sourdough slices nicely. The brioche makes a delicious and filling breakfast or brunch when stuffed with sliced ham, sauteed mushrooms and a fried egg. A baguette yields a bruschetta-like grilled cheese sandwich when dressed with fresh basil leaves, pesto and tomato confit.

The star in this show, of course, is the cheese. You can use the fanciest, stinkiest, crumbliest cheese your heart desires if you borrow a trick from the food scientists at Kraft. Flip over a box of Velveeta and you’ll find there, listed among the other ingredients, the reason that it slices so easily and melts so uniformly: sodium citrate. This white, crystalline ingredient looks like salt, and in fact it is a salt – a salt of citric acid, which is a natural component of citrus fruits. You can buy sodium citrate at some brewer supply stores or order it readily online.

I keep a big jar of the stuff in my pantry because it is so useful for making cheese sauces for pasta, nachos or fondue. Just dissolve 11 grams of sodium citrate into 1 1/8 cups (265 milliliters) of milk or water over medium heat, bring to a simmer, and gradually whisk or blend in 285 grams of finely grated cheese (3 to 4 cups, depending on the kind of cheese and coarseness of the grater). As the cheese melts, the sodium citrate serves as an emulsifier and prevents the fat from splitting off to form a greasy slick on top.

The recipes below riff on this technique to make a thicker cheese sauce that sets into an even sheet, perfect for cutting into slices and adding to sandwiches. Use whatever kind or blend of cheeses and liquids you want (cold wheat beer works well in place of water). Add the weights of the cheese and liquid, and multiply the total by 0.028 to get the amount of sodium citrate to use.

For example, you can make 500 grams of emulsified cheese (enough for 12 to 14 slices) by blending 14 grams of sodium citrate into 115 milliliters of cold wheat beer, simmering, and blending in 200 grams (3 cups) of grated Gruyere and 180 grams (3 cups) of grated sharp cheddar.

Poured into a warm baking sheet and covered with plastic wrap, the cheese becomes solid after about two hours in the refrigerator. The slices, when individually wrapped in plastic or parchment paper, will keep for up to two months in the freezer. They thaw quickly, so when you get that Sunday afternoon urge for a quick grilled cheese blast from the past, you can recreate a fond memory from childhood in no time.

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If possible, weigh the cheese in the recipes below rather than relying on volume measurements; volumes can vary greatly with the kind of cheese and fineness of grating.

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AGED WHITE CHEDDAR ON SOURDOUGH WITH APPLES

Start to finish: 2 1/2 hours (30 minutes active)

Makes 4 sandwiches

For the cheese slices:

3 teaspoons (14 grams) sodium citrate

1/2 cup (115 milliliters) water

6 cups (380 grams) aged white cheddar cheese, grated

For the sandwich:

Butter

8 slices sourdough bread, about 1/2 inch thick

8 very thin slices apple (Honeycrisp, or your favorite variety)

3 tablespoons (30 grams) thinly sliced jalapenos

Line a rimmed baking sheet with a silicone baking mat, or oil the sheet lightly, and heat it in an oven set to its lower temperature. The larger the baking sheet, the thinner the cheese slices will be.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, dissolve the sodium citrate in the water, then bring to a simmer. Add the grated cheese to the simmering water a handful at a time while whisking or blending with an immersion blender until all of the cheese is completely melted and smooth.

Pour the melted cheese onto the warmed baking sheet. Tip the sheet back and forth to form a single layer of even thickness. Cover the cheese layer with plastic wrap, and place it in the refrigerator until set, about 2 hours. Slice the cheese into pieces sized to fit your bread slices.

When ready to prepare the sandwiches, heat a large, heavy skillet over medium. Alternatively, heat a sandwich grill or panini press.

Butter the outward-facing sides of each bread slice, assemble the sandwiches, each with a slice of cheese, a slice of apple and a bit of the jalapenos. Add a sandwich to the skillet and panfry until the bread is golden brown and the cheese is melted, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Repeat with remaining sandwiches.

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GOAT CHEESE ON BAGUETTE WITH TOMATO CONFIT AND BASIL

Start to finish: 2 1/2 hours (30 minutes active)

Makes 4 sandwiches

For the cheese slices:

2 1/2 tablespoons (38 milliliters) water

2 1/4 teaspoons (11 grams) sodium citrate

3 cups (380 grams) goat cheese, rind removed and crumbled (Bucheron or your favorite semi-aged goat cheese)

For the sandwich:

16-inch baguette

Butter, as needed

1/4 cup (80 grams) pesto

1/2 cup (120 grams) tomato confit in oil (or sun-dried tomatoes in oil)

8 to 12 leaves fresh basil

Line a rimmed baking sheet with a silicone baking mat, or oil the sheet lightly, and heat it in an oven set to its lower temperature. The larger the baking sheet, the thinner the cheese slices will be.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, dissolve the sodium citrate in the water, then bring to a simmer. Add the cheese to the simmering water a handful at a time while whisking or blending with an immersion blender until all of the cheese is completely melted and smooth.

Pour the melted cheese onto the warmed baking sheet. Tip the sheet back and forth to form a single layer of even thickness. Cover the cheese layer with plastic wrap, and place it in the refrigerator until set, about 2 hours. Slice the cheese into pieces sized to fit your bread slices.

When ready to prepare the sandwich, heat a large, heavy skillet over medium. Alternatively, heat a sandwich grill or panini press.

Cut the baguette into 4 segments, each about 4 inches long, then slice each segment in half lengthwise. Lightly butter the crust of each baguette slice, then assemble the sandwiches, using a bit of pesto, a slice of cheese, a bit of sun-dried tomatoes and 2 to 3 basil leaves per sandwich. Panfry each sandwich until the crust is toasted and the cheese is melted, 2 to 3 minutes on a side.

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Photo credit: Chris Hoover/ Modernist Cuisine, LLC

Beer-can chicken: popular classic based on science

BY W. WAYT GIBBS Associated Press

You may not find too many restaurant chefs plopping their poultry on cans of PBR, but all those tailgaters and beachside grillers are on to something.

There are solid scientific reasons that chicken really does roast better in a more upright, lifelike pose than when it is flat on its soggy back. And by adding a couple of extra prep steps to the technique and taking your care with the temperature, you can get the best of both worlds: succulent, juicy meat and crispy, golden brown skin. On top of all that, you get to drink the beer! The chicken doesn’t actually need it.

Beer-can chicken recipes are everywhere on the Internet, but most of them don’t address the two biggest challenges of roasting poultry. The first is to avoid overcooking the meat. Nothing is more disappointing at a Labor Day cookout than to bite into a beautiful-looking chicken breast only to end up with a mouthful of woody fiber that seems to suck the saliva right out of your glands. The solution to this first challenge is simple: take your time, measure the temperature correctly and frequently, and choose the right target for the core temperature (as measured at the deepest, densest part of the thigh). When you cook the bird slowly, the heat has more time to kill any nasty bacteria living in the food, so you don’t have to cook the heck the out of thing. The federal government recommends bringing the meat to 165 F for at least 15 seconds. But guidelines issued by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service show that 35 minutes at 140 F achieves the same degree of pasteurization, even in the fattiest chicken. The recipe below calls for several hours in the oven and a core temperature of 145 F to 150 F, which will meet those guidelines as long as you slow-cook the bird at a low temperature. But be sure you use a reliable, oven-safe thermometer and place it properly as directed in the recipe. The tip shouldn’t be touching or near any bone. The second challenge that most beer-can chicken recipes fail to overcome is crisping the skin. Here, liquid is the enemy, and adding additional liquid in the form of a can full of beer is the wrong approach. So empty the can first _ the specifics of that will be left as an exercise for the reader_ and use the empty can merely as a way to prop up the bird and to block airflow in its interior so that the meat doesn’t dry out.

Also, give the skin some breathing room by running your (carefully washed) fingers underneath it before roasting. As the subdermal fat melts away, it will trickle downward; a few well-placed punctures provide exits without compromising the balloon-like ability of the skin to puff outward under steam pressure. Held apart from the juicy meat, the loose skin will dry as it browns, especially during a final short blast of high heat in a hot oven. Done right, each slice of tender meat will be capped with a strip of wonderfully flavored skin, which will be at its crispiest when it emerges from the oven. So have your table ready, and don’t be slow with the carving knife. But do take a moment to remove the can before you tuck in.

Modernist Cuisine Beer Can Chicken
Photo credit: Ryan Matthew Smith/ Modernist Cuisine, LLC

Start to finish: 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours (30 minutes active) Servings: 4 1 medium roaster chicken 12-ounce can of cold beer (any variety you like to drink) Set an oven rack in the lowest position in the oven. Remove the upper racks. Heat the oven to 175 F, or as low as your oven will allow if its controls do not go this low.

Wash your hands well with soap. Remove the neck and bag of giblets, if included, from inside the chicken. Slide your fingertips underneath the skin at the neck opening and gently work the skin away from the meat. Use care to avoid tearing the skin as you pull it loose from the body; continue as far as you can reach on both the front and the back. Turn the chicken over, and repeat from the cavity opening at the base of the bird, making sure to loosen the skin on the drumsticks so that it is attached only at the wings and the ends of the legs. Use a knife to pierce the skin at the foot end of each leg and at the tail end of the front and back. These small incisions will allow the cooking juices to drain away so that they don’t soak into the skin. Pour the contents of the beer can into a glass, and enjoy it at your leisure. Push the empty can into the tail end of the bird far enough that the chicken can stand upright as it rests on the can. If the neck was included with the chicken, use it like a stopper to close up the opening at the top of the bird. Otherwise you can use a bulldog clip to pinch the skin closed so that steam inflates the loose skin like a balloon and holds it away from the damp meat as the chicken roasts. Set a baking sheet in the oven. Insert the probe of an oven-safe thermometer into the deepest part of the chicken’s thigh. Stand the chicken upright (on the can) on the baking sheet and roast until the core temperature reaches 145 F if you want the white meat to be juicy and tender; for more succulent dark meat, continue roasting to a core temperature of 150 F. A medium-size roaster will need 3 to 4 hours.

After the first 30 minutes of roasting, check the effective baking temperature by inserting a digital thermometer through the skin to a depth of 3/8 inch. The temperature there should be within 5 F of the target core temperature (either 145 F or 150 F). If it is too high, open the oven door for several minutes; if too cool, increase the oven setting slightly. Repeat this check of the near-surface temperature every half hour or so. When the core temperature hits the target, take the chicken out and let it rest, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, increase the oven temperature to its hottest baking setting. Don’t use the broiler, but do select a convection baking mode if your oven has one. Return the bird to the hot oven, turn on the light, and watch it carefully as it browns. The goal is crisp, golden brown skin. The skin will start to brown quickly, and browning will accelerate once it starts. So keep your eye on it. Once the chicken is browned, remove the can, carve it, and serve immediately, while the skin is still crispy.