Tapenade Grilled Cheese

I’ve had some pretty intense posts over the last few days (Review of Eating Animals and a post with excellent comments On Food Labels).  So I thought I’d post something a bit more lighthearted today and revisit something that I used to do more frequently on Macheesmo, which is search for the perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

You can find all the previous entries under the Grilled Cheese Trials.  Today’s entry is a tapenade sandwich with homemade bread and mozzarella cheese!

I came up with this idea largely because I had some great tapenade ingredients left over from my Greek nachos experiment.  I figured why not make a sandwich with them!

Grilled Tapenade Sandwich
Enough for 2 big sandwiches

- 1 head roasted garlic
- 1/3 Cup sun-dried tomatoes
- 1/3 Cup kalamata olives
- 2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 6-8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese
- Fresh basil
- 4 slices sturdy, rustic bread.  A sourdough loaf would be good.
- 2-3 Tablespoons butter

Helpful Equipment:
- Mini food processor (obviously you could use the bigger version if you have that)

Making the Tapenade.  You could make a more traditional tapenade with capers and anchovies if that’s your thing.  I went with a roasted garlic and sun-dried tomato version though.

To start, you need to roast a head of garlic.  This couldn’t be easier.  Just chop off the top off an entire bulb, drizzle it with a bit of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and wrap the whole thing in foil.

Bake it at 350 for about 30-40 minutes.  Your house will smell delicious and the garlic should be a nice light brown color.  Let it cool for a few minutes.

If you’re making my version of the tapenade you’ll need these things also:

I have a tiny 3 Cup food processor that’s perfect for mixing up stuff like this.  I threw in my sun-dried tomatoes first as they would be the hardest to chop and gave them a spin for a few seconds.  Then I added my olives and finally my cloves of roasted garlic.  Drizzle in a few tablespoons of olive oil until the mixture comes together.

It looks like a lot of garlic, but the flavor is actually pretty mild.

Pulse it a few times to combine everything and you’ll be all set.  You don’t want to over-process this spread.  A bit chunky is good in my book.

Making the Sandwich.  I think that choosing the appropriate bread is one of the most important things you can do for a grilled cheese.  For this sandwich, I think I chose wisely.  I went with a rustic loaf of homemade no knead bread.  This is actually my normal bread that I make once a week and it worked great with this sandwich.  I wanted to make sure I had something hearty enough to stand up to the tapenade.

To get the sandwich ready, take two slices of bread and lightly spread butter on them.  That will be the outside of the sandwich.  Then flip the pieces over and slather on some tapenade onto both sides of the bread.  Layer on sliced mozzarella and some fresh basil and smoosh it all together so the buttered sides are on the outside!

It’s ready for the heat!

The key thing about a grilled cheese is controlling the heat.  To hot and you’ll burn your bread before your cheese is melted.  Too low on the heat and you’ll starve before it’s done.

A medium to medium-high heat should be about right depending on your stove and pan.  Just set the sandwich in and let it cook for a few minutes and gently give it a flip.  These aren’t like pancakes, you can flip them over and over again and that’s just fine.

This is about as perfect as it gets in my book:

The good news about this sandwich is that mozzarella melts incredibly fast.  So you shouldn’t have to worry about the bread being toasted before the cheese is melted.

As with all the other grilled cheese trial submissions, here’s my verdict:

Cheesiness: 7. I think mozzarella is better for pizzas than sandwiches.  It was good, don’t get me wrong, but it was almost too melty.  It made it kind of hard to eat!
Bread: 9. The bread was great.  Nicely toasted with a good crunch to it.  It held up perfectly to the toppings.
Fillings: 9. I swooned over this tapenade.  I could just eat it with a spoon.
Overall: 8. Unfortunately, not the best sandwich I’ve made for this competition, but definitely a worthy competitor.  I think if I subbed out a slightly more flavorful cheese, I’d be onto something.

Got an idea for a grilled cheese?  Leave a comment!