Every southern man may not be a french-trained chef, but every southern man should know how to make a perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Atlanta’s Zeb Stevenson tells us how.
A grilled cheese sandwich contains three essential ingredients: cheese, bread, and butter. A good one is a bread gone gold, with a subtle crunch and cheese that pulls apart at first bite. It should be savory but not a salt bomb, satisfying but not so rich that a whole sandwich would be impossible to finish. Chefs seem to have forgotten this, and while surveying the city, we crossed several crimes: stacking five pieces of cheese when only two melt well; using excessive amounts of butter, which leaks out with each greasy bite; cutting bread slices as thick as dictionaries; and worst of all, relying on a bowl of tomato soup for flavor.
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Making the perfect grilled cheese sandwich is easy.
We found only one chef who knew what he was doing, Stevenson at Watershed on Peachtree. He favors a cast-iron skillet for its even, consistent heat, H&F’s Southern Sandwich Bread, Banner Butter, and a semi-firm cheese-like fontina. But the key ingredient is patience, says Stevenson, who cooks his sandwiches open-face so that both slices of bread and cheese toast evenly.
Creating the Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich
1 Warm a cast-iron skillet over medium heat for three minutes. Slather two slices of bread with room-temperature butter (leave it out on the counter for at least two hours), coating slices from edge to edge. Cut two 1/8-inch-thick slices of cheese. (Gouda works great)
2 Once the skillet is hot but not smoking, place each slice of bread on the pan, butter-side down, and top with one piece of cheese. The butter should melt around the sides of the bread, and the cheese should start to sweat and become transparent at the edges.
3 The sandwich is almost done when the bread is golden brown (lift a piece to check when you think you’re close), and the cheese is melted around the edges and glossy in the middle. Put the two slices together and grill for 20 seconds more on each side.
4 Remove sandwich from stove and slice diagonally to serve.
This article originally appeared in Atlanta Magazine.