Grilled Cheese Review #3: Tomme Brebis Chevre with Saucisson Sec
NOTE: This post originally appeared on danielwaldman.com.
After experimenting with a few soft cheeses, I thought it’d be a good idea to move onto some semi-soft cheeses. These types of cheeses tend to melt more easily, and are often (but not always) fairly mild in flavor. The other day, I used what, so far has been my favorite cheese, along with some sliced dried sausage.
Cheese: Tomme Brebis Chevre au lait cru (raw sheep & goat milk)
Bread: Pain de mie complet (whole wheat sandwhich bread)
Fillings: Sliced saucisson sec (dried sausage), slices of tomato from a friend’s garden
Fat: Butter
As mentioned above, the Tomme Brebis Chevre has been one of my favorites since moving to France. It’s a light-flavored semi-soft cheese that’s rich without being overpowering. This particular version was made with a combination of Brebis (sheep) and Chevre (goat) milk. There are many varieties of Tomme, and unfortunately, I forgot to note down more details or take a picture (so enjoy this generic image).
It’s a semi-soft cheese with a silky texture, and it melted quite nicely, easily meeting the gooey texture I’ve been craving in these sandwiches without being overly sticky.
The pain de mie complet was fine, if a bit bland. Because it’s sliced thin, it didn’t quite hold up to the melted cheese, and some snuck through in areas where I pressed down a little too hard on the bread. While it didn’t add anything to the sandwich, it also didn’t take anything away from it. So, overall, I suppose that comes to a loss. I mean, shouldn’t every component add something special to the sandwich?
Finally, the sliced saucisson sec, or dried sausage, added a nice meaty saltiness. However, I probably should have more finely chopped it instead of using slices, as they too easily slid out from the inside of the sandwich when I bit into it. I also added a few slices of tomato from a friend’s garden that was ripened on my counter. The tomato worked well in this combination as it wasn’t too acidic (like the green zebra tomatoes I had the other day).
Sandwich score: 4/5
Overall, this was a fairly satisfying sandwich. I want to perhaps try the combination again some time, but with more finely chopped saucisson or even other flavors of saucisson. The one used here was just a generic pre-sliced package from the grocery store. Like many traditional food products in France, saucisson comes in a wide variety of style and flavors (I just bought one with Piment de Espelette at the farmer’s market today, in fact).