Toasted cheese three ways

In the absence of a plancha, our sandwich press

The need has been growing for a while now. It started when we watched Chef one night - which, if you haven't seen it, is an endearing story of how a chef finds redemption through sandwiches. The chef, whose name I can't remember despite having seen the movie twice now, is saved by very, very nice looking Cuban sandwiches and that kicked off a recent obsession with melted cheese in bread.

Mumbai cheese toastie

The need built when Diana Henry published a recipe for a Mumbai cheese toastie - an Indian street food sandwich with a fresh herb chutney for the all-important contrasting zing. At this point, resistance was futile and we gave in. It was fabulous. We don't have a panini press or jaffle maker, so for this sort of sandwich I do them in a frying pan with a bit of melted butter & oil and press them with a heavy mortar.

Ploughmans toastie

Of course, having yielded to the temptation, other things to go with cheese and bread started to come to mind. Leftover barbecued pork with cheese and piccalilli for a sort of ploughmans lunch version, for example. Inevitably, I suppose, I went back to where I began, and made something resembling a Cuban sandwich. Sort of. The thing is, apparently to be a proper Cuban sandwich you have to start with proper Cuban bread. Which I did not have access to. Instead I used demi-brioche burger buns, which apparently make it more like a medianoche sandwich. I had the sliced dill pickles, ham, roast pork (just bought, sliced roast pork, not lovingly marinated in mojo), Swiss cheese and mustard (home made Dijon-style mustard, not sweet American). And you know? It was OK. Definitely lacking movie magical qualities, but really very nice.

Medianoche. Sort of.