Panini
A Passion for Panini
I confess to being a barbeque/grilling snob. I figure, if you're going to use a gas grill, then why not just use the oven broiler? Ok. So you can use wood chips with most gas grills, but you still don't get the intense heat charcoal provides for grilling, and as far as barbequing (smoking) you get too much direct heat. And grill pans -- the kind that are used on a stove top -- struck me as equivalent to wearing a tie. Decoration without function. So I was wrong. Sue me.
I'm not confessing to being completely misguided. I still consider wood the fuel of choice for barbequing and grilling. What I hadn't realized was that the grill marks are more than mere decoration. The charred lines provide a taste of their own that works in complement with the less-thoroughly cooked areas of whatever has been grilled.
This little fillip of flavor is almost completely undetectable beneath the taste of wood smoke and the more uniform cooking provided by any flame grilling. And even with a grill pan, the meaty flavor of most steaks and chops is potent enough to partially disguise this hidden jewel of flavor. But panini… That is the grill pan's great talent.
A deconstructed panini is nothing special. Some sturdy bread with a bit of meat, cheese, or both. Perhaps some thinly sliced onion, tomato, or eggplant. Maybe a few leaves of basil or arugula (French sorrel is particularly good with turkey). Mustard, mayo, whatever. Basically just a sandwich. But take those elements and lay them on a grill with a weight on top and you have something more than the simple sum of its parts.
Take the sandwich pictured above. It consists of two slices of homemade sourdough bread with some coarse brown mustard. A slice of Black Forest ham, thin slices of red onion, and apple wood smoked cheddar. A very good sandwich to begin with. But brush a little olive oil on the bread, put it on a medium-hot grill, apply something heavy to the top, cook it until the marks appear in stark contrast (gradually compressing the sandwich from over an inch thick to about half an inch), and the character of the sandwich changes remarkably.
The exterior is a crisp shell containing a perfectly melded mixture of fillings. This is not the ham sandwich your mother used to make -- unless she was Italian.
You can spend a good bit of money on an electric panini grill made by companies like DeLonghi or Krups. (The July 2005 issue of Fine Cooking has a review of them.) I bought a Lodge cast iron grill and grill press that does an outstanding job of satisfying my passion for paninis.
I confess to being a barbeque/grilling snob. I figure, if you're going to use a gas grill, then why not just use the oven broiler? Ok. So you can use wood chips with most gas grills, but you still don't get the intense heat charcoal provides for grilling, and as far as barbequing (smoking) you get too much direct heat. And grill pans -- the kind that are used on a stove top -- struck me as equivalent to wearing a tie. Decoration without function. So I was wrong. Sue me.
I'm not confessing to being completely misguided. I still consider wood the fuel of choice for barbequing and grilling. What I hadn't realized was that the grill marks are more than mere decoration. The charred lines provide a taste of their own that works in complement with the less-thoroughly cooked areas of whatever has been grilled.
This little fillip of flavor is almost completely undetectable beneath the taste of wood smoke and the more uniform cooking provided by any flame grilling. And even with a grill pan, the meaty flavor of most steaks and chops is potent enough to partially disguise this hidden jewel of flavor. But panini… That is the grill pan's great talent.
A deconstructed panini is nothing special. Some sturdy bread with a bit of meat, cheese, or both. Perhaps some thinly sliced onion, tomato, or eggplant. Maybe a few leaves of basil or arugula (French sorrel is particularly good with turkey). Mustard, mayo, whatever. Basically just a sandwich. But take those elements and lay them on a grill with a weight on top and you have something more than the simple sum of its parts.
Take the sandwich pictured above. It consists of two slices of homemade sourdough bread with some coarse brown mustard. A slice of Black Forest ham, thin slices of red onion, and apple wood smoked cheddar. A very good sandwich to begin with. But brush a little olive oil on the bread, put it on a medium-hot grill, apply something heavy to the top, cook it until the marks appear in stark contrast (gradually compressing the sandwich from over an inch thick to about half an inch), and the character of the sandwich changes remarkably.
The exterior is a crisp shell containing a perfectly melded mixture of fillings. This is not the ham sandwich your mother used to make -- unless she was Italian.
You can spend a good bit of money on an electric panini grill made by companies like DeLonghi or Krups. (The July 2005 issue of Fine Cooking has a review of them.) I bought a Lodge cast iron grill and grill press that does an outstanding job of satisfying my passion for paninis.
3 Comments:
I agree 110%, Kevin. I make my paninis exactly the same way...with Lodge Logic's Square grill pan and cast iron press. They come out picture perfect every time. I could never understand why anyone would need a "panini press" when all you need to do is flip the panini over in the grill pan, for heaven's sake...lol.
Karen,
I also like that seasoned flavor a cast iron grill pan provides. Can't get that from a non-stick panini grill.
Absolutely. The taste is far superior than that of the non-stick versions. I also LOVE the perfect grill marks created with the Lodge grill pan. A few of my friends use the electric panini makers, and when it comes down to presentation and beautiful sear marks, Lodge grill pans win hands down.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home