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20th December 2016
12:10am GMT
I love watching trends emerging in other big cities before they inevitably make their way over to our little Island. Our food scene is getting better here in Dublin but you can safely say we are 18 months behind what happens in places like New York. Usually some enterprising local who has been traveling spots a trend and brings it back here like bagels, burritos or pressed juice. Talking to my cousin at the weekend who has his finger on the pulse living in Williamsberg NY it turns out that the humble cheese toastie is huge there at the moment. To be more accurate it is the classic American Grilled cheese sandwich that New Yorkers are paying up to $13 a pop for. So rather than wait 18 months for it to pop up here I thought it would be cool to create a recipe that we could all start cooking here and for once us dumb paddies would be way ahead of even the likes of London! Get your pans out because this tastes fucking gorgeous!
I was blown away at just how few ingredients you need here. Just 6! Make sure to splash out on some high end bread and good cheese although the cheap stuff works too!
Grab a couple of cloves of garlic.
Peel the bastards and chop the shit out of them.
Chop the chili. I like to leave the seeds in because I am not a pussy and like a bit of heat. Leave the seeds out if you don't like heat or ditch it completely if you want something more plain.
Lash on a big pot of oil and fuck in a good glug of oil.
Cook the chili and garlic over a nice slow heat.
Grab your kale out. Most places have this now. It is starting to get trendy again years after we stopped using it here.
Peel the leaves away from the thick stalks as they will be bitter and taste like shite.
It will look like you have way too much but it shrinks like a motherfucker so don't be worried.
After giving it a good wash (it tends to be pretty dirty unlike the nice clean salads) and fuck it into the pot.
It will fill the entire pot but don't panic. Still on a nice low heat for about 3-4 minutes and give it the odd stir.
Now onto the good stuff. Cut away the outside smaller pieces and get in towards the good stuff.
Get yourself 4 even sized pieces.
Grate a shit load of cheese onto the bread. If you have slices and are being a lazy bastard go with a couple for each slice.
Stack it up so as the bread is completely covered in cheese.
Double the bastards up just as if you were making a normal sandwich.
Cover the outside in a good amount of butter. Not really rocket science like most recipes this one. I'm basically teaching you how to make a fucking toastie here.
Smear it all over the outside. Don't be shy. The clue here is that butter tastes amazing!
Grab a big frying pan, griddle pan or skillet and lash in a little olive oil. Heat it up to a medium to high temperature.
Lash in the sambos. You should have butter on both sides.
Give the Kale a final stir. It will stay nice and green and keep all it's goodness. Lash in a bit of salt and pepper and take it off the heat.
After about 2 minutes the bad boys should be lovely and golden brown. Flip the bastards over.
You'll see the cheese slowly starting to help on the inside.
Give them another 2-3 minutes on the other side. Make sure the heat isn't too high so as they burn and lash in a sneaky little knob of butter to finish them off.
Serve the kale up straight away so as it is nice and hot. Look at how green it is. How could that not be good for you!
The cheese should be melted and dripping out of the sambos. If it isn't or if you are making a load of them fuck them into the oven to keep them warm for a couple of minutes.
Boom. Quickest, tastiest recipe ever. Half bad for you and half really good for you. The best of both worlds if you will. Epic
Sounds so simple and in truth it really is. What I love is that you’d feel pretty guilty eating cheese toasties but dress it up with some kick ass bread and a bit of on trend Kale and this is a healthy enough mid week snack. The technique is essential here to get the rick amount of melt! Hopefully you’ll enjoy them and somebody might even read this and open a grilled cheese joint or start serving them in their bars!
