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Cooking skill level 2: A Bit Crap i. Cheese on toast
Instructions Some of you may have found the toast recipé a bit basic. That's because it is. And while it makes a good breakfasting snack, it doth not a satisfactory lunch make. No sirree. For that you are definitely looking at toast with something. Something nice. Something tasty. Something like cheese. Yep, you've guessed it. Cheese. Now you can be extravagant with your cheese on toast (just look at the Italians with their pizzas), but this recipé is back to basics. The idea is to focus on the taste of the melted cheese, without detracting too much from it. For this reason, it is ideal that you get decent quality cheese. Preferably, it should be full fat cheese, as half-fat cheese does not bubble and melt and go deliciously golden brown under the grill as much as the real stuff. If you are conscious about what you eat (and the calories therein), just run to the shop when you buy it, or something.
Step 1 - Prepare the ingredients Fig 1 shows the ingredients. As well as the good quality cheese, it is recommended that you use a fresh tomato, decent sliced bread, and some Lea & Perrins' Worcestershire Sauce. They (Lea & Perrins, that is) do other stuff (probably), but this is their signature product. It gives extra flavour and colour to the cheese on toast. Now, where the toast recipé used the toaster, this one uses the grill. A toaster is most definitely not practical for cheese on toast, as the cheese will all drip down to the bottom of the toaster. Which is not good.
So, heat the grill to a hot heat (consult your instruction manual). Meanwhile, slice the cheese into thin-ish slices. About 8 slices are usually needed for 2 slices of bread (although, obviously, it depends on the relative sizes of the block of cheese and the slices of bread). Use common sense here. Figs 2 to 4 show the slicing process in all its glory.
Then slice the tomatoes into slices, in a slicing fashion. Just like fig 5 in fact. And that is all the preparation stage in a nutshell.
Step 2 - Make the toast go brown Once the grill has heated up sufficiently, place the bread in the middle of the baking tray (see fig 6) and place directly under the grill (see fig 7), the closer the better (although obviously not too close). If you are anticipating getting distracted by something or someone, it might be better to provide yourself a bit of insurance by not putting the toast really, really close to the grill. Just be sensible, ok? After about 5 minutes, the bread will be brown on one side. That is good enough.
Step 3 - Do the cheese topping bit Remove the baking tray from under the grill, flip the half-toast, half-bread (so that the half-bread side is facing vertically upwards) and place the cheese on the bread side, covering all the available surface with the cheese. Then put a few small glugs of Worcestershire Sauce over the uncooked cheese and place the cheese covered half-toast, half-bread under the grill. A step by step animation of this is lovingly depicted in fig 8.
Now this is the fun bit. As the cheese cooks, it starts to bubble and go golden brown. How exciting. Fig 9 shows this beautifully. Look at it bubble! And go golden brown! And kinda drip down the sides of the toast.
Once a gorgeous golden brown colour, remove from under the grill again, and distribute the sliced tomatoes evenly over the cheese on toast. Finally, a few grinds of the old pepper mill over the top (to taste). Put it back under the grill for a minute to warm, but not cook, the tomatoes (as we all know that cooked tomatoes have enough latent heat to power a small African village for several months). Look at fig 10 if you didn't understand a word of that. Allow the cheese on toast to cool slightly, and then serve.
There are many additions that can be made to the basic cheese on toast recipé. For example, by adding chopped onion at the putting the cheese on the half-toast, half-bread stage, or by adding chopped ham, or by putting a slice of ham underneath the cheese, or by putting lots of chopped things on there. It's really up to you. If you can do the cheese and tomato combo, then perhaps push yourself by trying one of the crazy suggestions above. And then, finally, people might start to respect you. But not want to come near you. (Because of the onion breath.) You can also add various condiments, such as tomato ketchup, brown sauce, or pickle. But back to the simple recipé - it's time to eat...
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Utensils required Baking tray (or grill pan) Knife Chopping board
Ingredients Bread (2 slices) Cheddar cheese 2 tomatoes Worcestershire sauce Pepper (to taste)
Serves 1
Preparation time 1 minute
Cooking time 10 minutes |
