Why did I not buy this earlier?
I like cheese. I love melty cheese. What's a good and relatively healthy way to introduce it to my diet? Sandwiches with dark bread. But how can I melt the cheese in them? Well, I sed microwave for that. It's fine, still can be tasty. But then I remembered, that sandwich presses exist. After a lot deliberation I bought Philips HD2350/80.
I first used its default plates, that result in triangle sandwiches. I do not care that much for the shape, although I do understand that triangles may be somewhat better. The plates do not really cut the sandwich itself, or at least do not cut it fully, since for me it did not cut ham. Bread - yes. Cheese - possibly. But my main problems were:
- Bread does not fit the holes perfectly, even if I cut it myself.
- It does not get pressed evenly even in the middle.
- The way it fries is also kind of uneven.
- Some cheese melts outside of the press with a little bit of it getting under the plate, which is not great.
I tried multiple ways to work around this issues, but no luck, so today I tried the "panini" plate, which is a grill plate, essentially. And it's great. It cooked everything evenly, just the right amount, most of the cheese stayed inside, and the taste was just great. Beats microwaved sandwiches hands down.
If anyone curious, I used Vaasan taika taikaruis täysjyväruisviipaleet bread (so, no, it's not burnt on picture, it is just dark bread), 4 slices of Saarioinen Pippurikalkkuna, 3 slices of Herkkutilan kermajuusto, 1 on each slice of bread and 1 between turkey slices, and I also used this infused rapeseed oil, which is specifically meant for grilling, to wet the bread, where it comes in contact with the plates. I placed the sandwich onto the press after it got hot enough, and cooked it for like 2-2.5 minutes. Result was just great. I do recommend this.
