Easter Dinner Grilled Cheese
These sandwiches, adapted from culture co-founder Thalassa Skinner’s recipe, are a holiday dinner in a single, delicious serving. Try them with a glass of white wine and a light salad (or leftover Easter candy!).
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter room temperature, divided
- 8 spears thin green asparagus fibrous ends removed
- Salt to taste
- Ground black pepper to taste
- 12- inch French-style baguette cut into 6-inch lengths and sliced open horizontally
- 4 ounces Brie or fresh chèvre or split the difference and use a goat brie such as Marin French Cheese's Brie, sliced into thin pieces
- 4 ounces thin-sliced Virginia ham
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon apricot jam
Instructions
- In a skillet over medium-high heat, melt half of the butter. When the butter has stopped foaming, add asparagus, and season with salt and pepper. Cook, turning often, until all sides are lightly browned. Remove asparagus from heat, and set aside.
- On the bottom halves of the baguette, make two layers of cheese and ham, sandwiching 4 spears of asparagus between the layers. Smear the top half of each baguette with Dijon and jam, and cap the sandwiches.
- In the skillet over medium-low heat, melt remaining butter. Once the butter has stopped foaming, add one of the sandwiches to the skillet. Press the sandwich with something heavy, such as a foil-wrapped bottom of another cast-iron skillet, a full kettle, or a foil-wrapped brick. Cook the sandwich for about 2 minutes, until the cheese softens; then flip, weight the sandwich again, and cook for an additional 2 minutes. Repeat process with the second sandwich, and serve immediately.
Lassa Skinner
Lassa is a cheesemonger and one of the co-founders and owners of culture: the word on cheese. When not teaching classes on cheese and wine in Napa, Calif., you can find Lassa entreating fellow mongers to stock our magazine in their shops.
