Molly and Declan on the ultimate grilled cheese flex.
Sourdough or brioche? One cheese, two cheeses, three cheeses...four? Halved lengthwise or diagonally?
Molly and Declan talk about the most incorrectly named sandwich, debate butter vs. mayo, augments vs. condimenti, and whether a grilled cheese without cheddar is one at all.
Special thanks to our listeners for your questions—especially those who took the time to call in. Send your burning sandwich questions (not burning sandwich, you know what we mean) to podcasts@food52.com.
Mystical galaxy voiceover: Peanut butter and jelly. Grilled cheese. Pastrami. Tuna salad. The Sandwich Universe.
Molly: Welcome to The Sandwich Universe, a place where we roll around in the glory of sandwiches for 30-60 minutes every week, (laughing) depending how we're feeling. I'm Molly Baz, one of your hosts. I am a professional chef, a cookbook author, and recipe developer, and I'm joined here on the pod with my good friend Declan Bond.
Declan: Hi everyone. I am nothing more than a professional eater, a lover of sandwiches, and an explorer in the sandwich universe. That's really my claim here.
Molly: And a philosopher.
Declan: I'm a philosopher of sandwiches. That's true.
Molly: And so Declan brings deep thoughts to this podcast. Really, really deep, important thoughts.
Declan: He does try.
Molly: Today we are tackling perhaps the simplest sandwich of them all.
Molly and Declan: The grilled cheese.
Molly: So let's get right into it. What in the world is a grilled friggin' cheese?
Declan: The history of the grilled cheese. Apparently, a grilled cheese was at one point called a "cheese dream," which I really--
Molly: Wow! I love that.
Declan: I think that's epic. That's a great name. We should just start calling grilled cheeses "cheese dream."
Molly: They're--I feel like they're more like, crispy cheese dreams. You know? Like you have to--there, there has to be some way to evoke the crunchy exterior in the name. Granted, "grilled" isn't the right way to do that, because let's be honest, they're not grilled. But I would go for a "crispy cheese dream." That's a sandwich I want to eat, honestly.
Declan: Hey, you want to whip--you want to whip up some crispy cheese dreams?
Molly: (laughing) Am I in for a crispy cheese dream tonight?
Declan: Oh man. I mean, I think for me, a grilled cheese is like, yeah, I mean you said it just now. It's one of those, you know, epically simple sandwiches. It kind of paves the way for all sandwiches to be quite at that level of simplicity. It shows that it can be done. Um, what other associations? I guess I just think of like, pool days, summer afternoons. Uh, you know, impatience. I feel like there's this level, with the grilled cheese, of impatience, because you want to just like, have it, but you have to go slow and low. So uh, it's a it's a test of patience.
Molly: Interesting. I kind of would have said like, this is the sandwich that you make when you don't have a lot of time on your hands, and you're just kind of like, "I have, I have cheese, I have bread, there's some kind of fat lying around, like, let's make a frickin' sandwich." But I do hear you that--
Declan: That's exactly right though. You always, you reach for the grilled cheese in your sandwich repertoire at just the moment when you have like, you know, forgotten that actually, you need to do that nice and slow. (laughing)
Molly: Totally.
Declan: Because you think it's like, "Okay, time to quickly whip up a sandwich."
Molly: Totally. So then, it really ends up taking--I feel like a great grilled cheese can be achieved in no less than 10-12 minutes.
Declan: Yeah, I think ten is a solid--like, 10 from start to finish. I think you could probably get away with seven or even six if you have your mise en place...
Molly: Ooh, depends what kind of bread. Depends, depends, depends.
Declan: Alright, race to the bottom. We're going to have to race to see who can make the fastest grilled cheese, but still get that perfect golden brown and oozy center.
Molly: Totally. And we both grew up eating grilled cheeses, correct? You ate them by the pool, which like, is obnoxious, but we love that for you. I ate them on my back porch. So I have a screened-in back porch where I grew up, in upstate New York. Um, and I remember always eating grilled cheeses on peasant bread. Does that resonate with you, the words "peasant bread"?
Declan: (sarcastic voice) Oh, oh, no, no, no. I don't know what peasant bread is. (both laughing) What is this?
Molly: It's just like, below you.
Declan: What is this "peasant bread"? Um...
Molly: I'm sorry. We just, we always got one brand of bread, and the loaf that we would get was called peasant bread. And then just as I was sitting here, I was asking myself, is peasant bread a known type of bread, or is it just a bread made from the company Bread Alone? In which case maybe you wouldn't know what it is. I'm not suggesting that you're like, above a peasant. But you took it there.
Declan: Well, I don't--I have not heard of peasant bread as a brand, but peasant bread is like a--I don't know, I feel like you can find that around at like, fancy bakeries, actually.
Molly: It's basically like a sourdough but take out the sour.
Declan: Yeah.
Molly: In any case, those are--I used to eat peasant bread grilled cheeses with cheddar, and I'm pretty sure they were made with butter, although I'd have to double check with my mom on that. And it's just--it's a sandwich of comfort.
Declan: Yeah, it is an ultimate comforting food.
Molly: What is not a grilled cheese?
Declan: Well for one thing, a cheese sandwich, unmelted cheese. Another thing that is not maybe obvious, is that a melted cheese sandwich, which I define as putting two slices of bread in the toaster oven with cheese on top of them and then folding those two things together. That just doesn't qualify.
Molly: Totally. And explain why not, because I think I know where you're going with this.
Declan: Well for one, I don't think that usually when that happens, you're using any kind of fat to like, fry the outside of the toast. Second, that's just a bad--it's just--there's no reason to do that, because the cheese on the top side is going to just sog up the bread, and there's not enough toasting happening on the bottom to really get that crispy crunch. Like, you need the melted cheese to be like, countered, by like, the frying of the bread. And I feel like a melted cheese, like, always just turns out a little bit soggy in a way that I don't like.
Molly: It's just a sad ass grilled cheese. Um, so we don't fuck with a melted grilled cheese, but we love a grilled grilled cheese, and we're going to talk about the name later. Um, but before we do that, let's dive into some fun facts.
Declan: What are the facts?
Molly: Okay, to start, let's look up the definition of a grilled cheese, and as always, let's consult our favorite resource, Wikipedia. "A grilled cheese is a toasted sandwich made with one or more varieties of cheese on bread. It is typically prepared by heating one or more slices of cheese between slices of bread with a cooking fat such as butter on a frying pan, griddle, or sandwich toaster until the bread browns and the cheese melts. A grilled cheese may contain separate ingredients, though the main ingredients remain the bread and cheese." I would say that's an entirely accurate definition of the grilled cheese.
Declan: Yeah, I think that's a pretty, pretty flawless...
Molly: Like, nailed it, Wikipedia. Here's one from the Los Angeles Times: "Survey suggests grilled cheese lovers have more sex, are more generous." That's two checks for us.
Declan: (laughing) We don't make the rules. Like, this is--this is--these are facts. Okay, here, here's an interesting fact, maybe. Okay, so Americans eat a whopping 2.2 billion grilled cheese sandwiches per year.
Molly: I do not know how many people there are in America. Do you?
Declan: Yeah, there are 350 million people or something like that.
Molly: Ok, so that's how many per person per year?
Declan: 2.2 billion, 350 million...that's like, that's not that many. That's like, five or six grilled cheeses per year. Seven...
Molly: That's a horrible stat.
Declan: That--yeah. God, that is pitiful. Americans don't eat nearly enough grilled cheeses. That's why we don't have enough sex and they're not charitable. (laughing)
Molly: Which means America is not having any sex! (laughing) You guys, America, wake up, dudes, there's more to life. Let's take a quick break and when we come back we will hear from some of you guys and try to answer some of your burning questions.
(midroll)
Molly: Here's one from @big_gus_bakes.
Call-in: How many things can you add to a grilled cheese beyond the bread and cheese before it can no longer be called a grilled cheese?
Molly: That's a great freakin' question, Big Gus Bakes.
Declan: That is a good question. I think--I mean, there's two obvious categories of like, things that happen with a grilled cheese. There's, one, condiments, uh, the things kind of outside the sandwich, and then there's like, augments, things that you put inside. And I feel like this question is about the augments. There's two major ones that I can think of, tomatoes and bacon.
Molly: Maaaje.
Declan: And sometimes tomatoes and bacon. Um, but--I--is it still a grilled cheese with tomato and bacon?
Molly: I do think it is, only because like, tradition has it, you know what I mean? And if you were to go throwing, uh, I don't know, broccoli rabe and uh, pancetta in there, I don't think it's a grilled cheese, but like, there's something about the spirit of the grilled cheese with tomato and bacon and the fact that we've seen it time and again and again, on menus and in diners, that still feels like it's celebrating the grilled cheese without taking a huge departure. So I think those two are fair game. Side note, I just want to say, I don't think it's an either/or situation. I think it's a, if you're going to add some stuff in, if you're augmenting, you're adding both. You're adding the bacon and you're adding the tomatoes, and you're not picking one or the other, because it's about that beautiful marriage of crispy and salty and fatty with juicy and acidic, and the cheese, and without one, the other kind of isn't holding its weight.
Declan: Yeah, I will say that tomatoes can go alone.
Molly: Ehhh.
Declan: Like, if you have a really, really sharp cheddar and a really, you know, funky sharp gruyère, and you need a little bit of juicy tomato to help, you know, kind of like, uh, get you through all that, I feel like it can work. Bacon on its own is just too much.
Molly: Way too much. Okay. Yeah, maybe that's correct.
Declan: Like, just bacon.
Molly: Bacon alone, not okay. Bacon plus tomato, okay. Tomato alone, okay. I guess the other thing is kind of just looking at the ratios. When you cut into that grilled cheese and you're looking at the two sides stacked up, if the ratios are tipping in the direction of augments, in favor of augments, that's when you know, this isn't a grilled cheese anymore. It's not a tomato and bacon sandwich with a little bit of cheese, because actually that would be a BLT with cheese, minus the lettuce and mayonnaise. Like, you know what I mean? So I feel like it still needs to feel predominantly cheesy.
Declan: Yeah. I think another question is, are you putting your augments in before or after? Like, if you--I--I don't know. And to be honest, I've never done the before. Like, I've never put a grilled cheese with unmelted--like, bread in with unmelted cheese and tomatoes and bacon in a pan to then grill, or, you know, melt the cheese and fry the bread. I've always made my grilled cheese, opened that baby up, slapped in some tomatoes, slapped in some bacon, close that baby up, and then cut into it. And that creates like, a good like, kind of uniform texture, and kind of wrapping everything in the cheese.
Molly: Yeah, I do know what you mean. It sounds really hectic to me to open up a like, perfectly composed grilled cheese and start stuffing things in there. But I totally hear you on the fact that you don't want to cook the tomato into the grilled cheese.
Declan: Yeah. You're gonna have tomato sauce. If you want to do that, you should just do--
Molly: I'm not that worried about the bacon.
Declan: Yeah. Agreed. But you're not going to put raw bacon in there, you're going to cook your bacon first.
Molly: Sure. But you're also going to put in with the cheese and then sizzle it.
Declan: Okay, okay, okay. But here's my point. If you're gonna have cooked tomatoes then you might as well have tomato soup on the side, which is another kind of classic thing that is--honestly kind of doesn't fit in the condiment category, but somehow is so traditional and iconic.
Molly: It's just like one of those perfect flavor pairings, and I think this goes back to grilled cheeses and nostalgia and just, the record has been set. People dunk grilled cheeses in tomato soup with great success. (laughing) Also, I just want to call to your attention, ketchup is cooked tomato, and so I do sort of feel like, if you are yearning for a tomatoey grilled cheese and you don't have tomatoes, just dunk it in ketchup, because that's kind of a great way to eat the grilled cheese.
Declan: Yeah. I have to admit, a long time ago, I would have kind of scoffed at a ketchup dunk.
Molly: Yeah, of course.
Declan: But these days--oh, god. These days--excuse me. These days--
Molly: (laughing) Oh what, you're so evolved? Oh my god. You're huge.
Declan: (laughing) These days, I feel like I--actually, it's one of the first things I reach for is ketchup, because it has, it has the sweetness to complement that like, heavy duty sharp, you know, cheese flavor, and yeah, I don't know. I really do like it now.
Molly: I have to say, I'm really proud of you. Just for those of you who don't know Declan that wall, which is probably a lot of you, um, Declan is very averse to sweetness in his savory food, or just actually just sweetness period.
Declan: Yeah.
Molly: And so, um, it's really, really big of him to say that. So I just want to--can we all just take a moment? (laughing) Um, so that's great. Ketchup, we love ketchup. That's a great, that's a great condiment, and we can get into condiments later on. Let's take another question.
Declan: Okay, here's one from @karenchoy.
Call-in: Can you bake or roast grilled cheese sandwiches, or is that no longer grilled cheese?
Declan: Uh, yeah, I mean, it is not in the name. (laughing) We can say that.
Molly: But guess what also is not in the name? That you, that you griddle a cheese, because guess what's in the name? Grilled cheese! Has anyone ever actually grilled a freakin' grilled cheese? It's a misnomer and I'm mad about it.
Declan: (laughing) Why? But why do you think it is called a grilled cheese? Like, where did that come from? What's the etymology of the cheese grilled?
Molly: My feeling on an actually grilled cheese is, dry, burnt, cheese isn't melted, just like, total disaster.
Declan: Cheese is just melting all over your grill, into your, you know, the flame area where the gas is coming up...
Molly: Oh my god, the flare-ups, like, the whole thing. And I just honestly feel like it was meant to be titled a griddled cheese, and somebody dropped the "ddle"! Like, it got lost in translation, and we need to put the "ddle" back in the grilled cheese. (laughing)
Declan: Ok, so I guess we're campaigning now to just start calling it griddled cheese wherever possible.
Molly: Yes, we need to change all the menus across America. America's favorite sandwich is the griddled cheese.
Declan: 2.2 billion. (laughing)
Molly: Okay, end rant.
Declan: Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. (laughing)
Molly: Yeah, again, there'll be a lot of those in this podcast. So that's the tea on that. It's not baked, it's not grilled, it's griddled. This one's coming in from @_jaydiosa.
Call-in: What do you think is the best cheese combo for the ultimate cheese pull?
Molly: Cheddar is decent, but not great.
Declan: You can't do it all.
Molly: It cannot do it all. I think it's pretty obvious that American cheese is sort of the ultimate cheese pull, almost so much so that it's like, it's the cheese drip more than the cheese pull.
Declan: Yeah, it can get a little gloopy. It goes beyond pulling.
Molly: It can gloop, it can sag. But like, if you're looking for that shot, you want to get that good shot, American's your girl. Um, gruyère, I think, has a great cheese pull. Mozzarella has the best cheese pull.
Declan: Really, mozz?
Molly: Of all.
Declan: I guess you're right. I'm just--I guess I'm just surprised to hear you say mozz, because I think of mozz as like, the stuff that's in like, the water, you know? Those like, you know, you get mozz, like, a big jug of water and it's got a ball of cheese in it.
Molly: That's the fresh mozz. That's not the--that's not the mozz we're talking about. We're talking about the lowbrow, part-skim milk, Polly-o vibe mozz.
Declan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The shards.
Molly: So those are great for a cheese pull. I'm not saying I think they belong in a grilled cheese, because on the contrary, I actually don't think mozz has a place in grilled cheese. We've made a lot of grilled cheeses together and mozz just did not factor very high on our list of cheeses. Another good one, though, is fontina cheese. Fontina is so stretchy.
Declan: Fontina is the--it's the sleeper. No one thinks of fontina. It's rare to have it just like, on hand in your fridge. Um, but it does make for a good cheese pull.
Molly: It does. And then the other one, actually, I think, is Monterey Jack, which is kind of wack.
Declan: Mmm. What is Monterey Jack? I don't even know what it is. It's like, it's like, cheddar...it's like nascent cheddar.
Molly: It's cheddar slash, like, low mozz, low moisture mozz with zero character.
Declan: Well, so what is Colby Jack?
Molly: No idea. It doesn't matter what it is, honestly. (laughing) Okay, so those are your cheese pull cheeses. Alright, next.
Declan: Alright. This one is from @thegooners4.
Call-in: Hey Molly. What is something I can dip my grilled cheese in for some extra goodness?
Declan: Let's just say this. The grilled cheese is a sandwich that was built for condiments.
Molly: It is a vehicle for the condimenti.
Declan: It's--the best way to eat a grilled cheese, perhaps, is with literally a lineup of condiments, so that every single bite, you get a different condiment, and you've kind of made a world tour of condiments with your grilled cheese, with maybe one straight up bite at the at the front and the back of that experience.
Molly: Your biggest grilled cheese flex is not how many formaggi can you stuff inside your cheese. It's, how many condimenti can you line up at the table for the dipping? I stand by that. And so we're talking, grainy mustard, uh, Dijon mustard...
Declan: Every mustard.
Molly: Every single mustard. We had--what was that one we had the other day? Oh, Dill. Dill mustard.
Declan: Dill mustard. That was really gangster.
Molly: Oh my god, forget about it. So good. Horseradish mustard.
Declan: But you can do horseradish cream, is probably cool.
Molly: Yes. Ketchup, onion jam, hell yes.
Declan: Definitely.
Molly: Uh, sriracha. Why not?
Declan: Absolutely.
Molly: Sriracha mayo? Why not! Tartar sauce?
Declan: Oh yes.
Molly: Ok, ok. Aioli?
Declan: Yes.
Molly: Yes. Now we're talking. Like literally, what are you not dipping your grilled cheese in? Pesto? Fuck it. I don't really like pesto. Would dip.
Declan: Dip it.
Molly: It's a vehicle for dipping.
Declan: Yeah. I agree.
Molly: Always be dipping, dudes.
Declan: ABD.
Molly: Okay, here's one from @arieldaniellemary. "Confirm for us if it's perverted to put mayo on the outside instead of butter, because I think it is." How do you feel about it, Dec?
Declan: I've never done that.
Molly: You've never done it.
Declan: I will admit that I recently learned about this technique.
Molly: From who?
Declan: From...from...
Molly: (laughing) Tell them.
Declan: Yup. It's, it was a pretty big moment.
Molly: It me!
Declan: (laughing) It was Molly.
Molly: Spoiler alert!
Declan: We made a grilled cheese, and she just reached for the Kewpie mayo to put it on the outside of the bread, and I stood back aghast.
Molly: (loud gasping sounds)
Declan: And I then I understood what was about to happen. (laughing) Um...
Molly: It's just a great alternative to butter, and here's what I think. To answer your question, no, it is not perverted. If anything, it's the opposite. I don't know what the opposite of perverted is, but it's that.
Declan: Divine.
Molly: It is--it's divine! Um, my feeling on butter on grilled cheese is, ok, ok! Like, I get it. It's not not delicious, but also, there's so much lactose in a grilled cheese when you're putting butter on the outside and you need a lot of butter to get it really fried on both sides. You're adding butter to the skillet when you put it in, you're flipping it, you're adding more butter. All in all, a lot of dairy in the grilled cheese. And sometimes for me that leaves a lingering kind of lactose layer in my mouth that I don't care for. And I think that mayo is a great alternative, especially if you have something like Kewpie. It does the same job. Like, let's not kid ourselves, probably, side by side, aside from flavor, in terms of crisping and browning and all of that, they do the same job. They're both a fat. Mayonnaise is oil, and they both are great crisping agents. I just think the flavor of Kewpie or like a really high quality mayo, homemade mayo, oh my god, is delicious. And your grilled cheese deserves that.
Declan: Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.(laughing) I will say that it's worth noting that you can't just get away with olive oil. Like olive oil or another kind of oil, if you can avoid it--like, obviously if you need something, of course, but it's just not the same as the mayo.
Molly: I think the flavor of olive oil just is too powerful and is in opposition to the flavor of the pure flavor of the dairy of the cheese. But this brings me to my next point, which is, we should be talking about the bread here, because the bread is one of three ingredients in a grilled cheese. And if we're talking about mayo, we should be talking about what we're putting that mayo on. So you and I, we'll reach for a loaf of sesame sourdough 99 times out of 100. But I guess the question is, what are the appropriate breads for grilled cheese, if not a sesame sourdough? Which is just table stakes the most delicious bread of all time.
Declan: Literally, I just like--I just huff and I puff, and I can't think of a better bread.
Molly: He has nothing to say. (laughing)
Declan: Obviously the classic you know, squishy bread or wondery type thing or briochey thing. I will say that I have definitely, you know, of all the bread substitutes for sesame sourdough, I have really enjoyed a squishy briochey bread for a grilled cheese, like at a diner.
Molly: I think it's nice. Yeah, it's nostalgic in a way. It's a different kind of grilled cheese, you know, that's like a five bite grilled cheese. It's so--it goes down so easy. Um, it's not super hefty, like, it's not--it's not as dynamic as a grilled cheese that's made with several cheeses on a sturdier sourdough or something like that, that kinda has a little bit more character. But there's certainly a time and a place for it. I guess I would say like, when the grilled cheese is my dinner and it's the meal, and it's kind of the main event, I'm probably reaching for a really high quality sourdough and it's probably got sesame seeds on it. (laughing) When the grilled cheese is kind of like an afterthought and it's maybe actually just like an afternoon snack type of scene, maybe that's what I'm reaching for a more neutral brioche or white bread.
Declan: Yeah.
Molly: A milk bread would be amazing.
Declan: Milk bread is cool. I think there's also like a miche, or like, some kind of like hardier, whole wheat thing that could, could potentially work.
Molly: Mmhmm. Yeah, especially with a really sharp cheese.
Declan: Yeah, exactly. It has like a nuttiness and a roundness that I think kind of helps with, if you've got like a really sharp cheddar and, you know, nothing, no other quattro formaggio blend that's balancing it. Um, somehow that that works in my head.
Molly: Yeah, agree. Shall we conceive of our perfect grilled cheese, our ultimate grilled cheese?
Declan: Let us ponder.
Molly: Ok, I'm going to put this on us right now. No sesame sourdough.
Declan: Okay, we have to do it without sesame sourdough.
Molly: (laughing) Okay, so regular sourdough?
Declan: (laughing) Extra seeds, not just sesame?
Molly: Yeah, seeded sourdough, hold the sesame.
Declan: I actually--so I think we should definitely try one with like a whole wheat miche or something like that.
Molly: Okay, something that's like nutty and whole grainy and has a lot of depth and character and is like hefty.
Declan: Yeah.
Molly: And then what do you want to do in the cheese department?
Declan: Cheese department. I mean, one thing has to be known: cheddar cheese is the first cheese you reach for when you're making for cheese.
Molly: For a grilled cheese.
Declan: Yeah. It could be that bright orange, brilliant, you know, sun baked cheddar, it could be a white sharp cheddar, any kind of cheddar, it has to be in there.
Molly: Actually, Declan and I did a taste test of Cabot cheddar cheeses is in preparation for this podcast and we unanimously agreed that the Vermont extra sharp cheddar was the bomb.
Declan: That was the one.
Molly: It was so good. Um, so I do kind of feel like, if there's no cheddar involved, like, I'm not really interested. I know that there's a grilled cheese that I've had and that's out there, that's just American, but, it's just--it leaves something to be desired, and when I'm meeting that grilled cheese, I'm probably following it up by going into the cheese drawer and slicing myself a couple slices of cheddar on my way out of the kitchen. (laughing) So just put it in the grilled cheese.
Declan: Yup. Um, so at least cheddar. I think a gruyère does really well to compliment, but it does increase the sharpness. So then I'm like, okay, are we going to put also an American in there to make it like the gooey, oozy mellowness of the American to complement the gruyère? The cheddar is like, right down the middle, but now we're talking about three cheeses.
Molly: Okay, it's fine. Like, we've already gone there, so let's just go there. I feel like that's the triple threat.
Declan: Brilliant.
Molly: Can you guys hear Tuna? She's humping the pillow across from me in the closet. (laughing) Um, and then, I mean--I don't think I have to say this, but like, we're going to have a lot of condiments when we make this.
Declan: Every condiment we can possibly find should be available to us.
Molly: There's going to be every condiment under the sun, and we're going to just dip.
Declan: Mmm. Yeah. Or maybe even some pickled onions.
Molly: Let's pickle some onions!
Declan: Okay, cool.
Molly: Okay, we're gonna have ourselves a grilled cheese feast and you guys are going to come along for the ride.
Declan: Let's go.
(musical interlude)
Molly: Okay, why don't you start by cutting the miche? Alright.
Declan: Oh, you know what? One thing I love to do when I'm making grilled cheeses is like, once you put the butter in the pan and it's all like, you know, rendered, and you've given your pan a twirl, and you put your sandwich in, and then you just kind of squeegee the whole pan around to get as much butter like, soaked up into the actual bread as possible.
Molly: I think that is a genius technique. We're gonna start grating our cheese. Let's both get a vegetable peeler. I think vegetable peeling--
Declan: Wait, what? A vegetable peeler?
Molly: Yeah, so that we can make really nice thin shards, because we want them to melt evenly. This is the whole struggle of a grilled cheese is getting the cheese to melt.
Declan: (unintelligible)
Molly: Well what were you going to do?
Declan: I was just going to cut it.
Molly: Nah, dawg. Why don't you start opening up those American singles?
Declan: Okay. I think the American should go in the middle. What do you think?
Molly: 100%. Cause it melts so fast.
Declan: It melts so fast, that's right.
Molly: And the gruyère and the cheddar will be on the outside because they require a little bit more heat to get nice and melty. (bottle farting sound) That's mayo for you! (laughing) Um, do you believe in the Kewpie?
Declan: I do. It's looking glorious already. Are you going in for a flip?
Molly: (gasping) Big! That looks nice! Doesn't it?
Declan: Mmm. I think you're under.
Molly: You think I'm under? Oh my god, flip it again. Flip it back. Flip it back.
Declan: Flip it back. Hurry. (laughing)
Molly: Okay, okay, okay, okay, no problem.
(musical interlude)
Molly: Should we start lining up the condiments? Like, let's get a tray of condiments going. We're opening like 25 mustards right now. One or two, simply not enough. Cornichons, yes please.
Declan: Olives.
Molly: Onion relish. I want to take a simple--I'm going to take a straight up bite first.
Declan: Yeah, you always start with a straight up, and then...
Molly: You start dipping and dabbing.
Declan: You start dipping...(laughing) and yeah, from there on out.
Molly: Okay, cheers, Big.
Declan: Cheers.
Molly: It smells good. Mmm. Good.
(musical interlude)
Declan: That is incredible grilled cheese.
Molly: It is. It is so classic, but like, there's crunch. The outside is so crunchy. This one's begging for some ketchup.
Declan: Something a little sweet.
Molly: Mmm! Oh my god.
Declan: Alright, well, thanks for joining us on The Sandwich Universe, where everything is a sandwich.
Molly: And every sandwich, especially a grilled cheese, deserves a condiment.
Declan: A special thanks to Cabot Creamery, the Food52 podcast network, and Coral Lee for putting together our show.
Molly: And don't forget about Jeffrey Brodsky who made our theme music. If you are loving the show, take a second to rate it, review it, subscribe, do all the things to it that you can. Maybe...
Declan: Tell your friends.
Molly: Tell your friends. That would be massively meaningful to us. (laughing) And we can't wait to see you next time on The Sandwich Universe!
Declan: Bye!
Molly: Buh-bye!