How to turn a good grilled cheese sandwich into a great one

Grilled cheese sandwiches have been making headlines recently. Earlier this month, Skout ("the world's largest network for meeting new people") announced that in a survey of 4,600 of its users, 32 per cent of people who love grilled cheese sandwiches "have sex at least six times a month" compared with 27 per cent of those who don't like the sandwich. I doubt the survey involved rigorous methodology, and while it seemed to show a correlation between love for grilled cheese sandwiches and quantity (but not quality) of sex, it could just as easily mean that grilled cheese sandwich lovers are more prone to lying. Despite this, though, the "results" were announced in online and print publications including Time magazine, the Daily Mail, The Los Angeles Times and Huffington Post, and by Fox News.

What didn't make the news was a video released last month by The New York Times titled, "Making grilled cheese without a recipe". I thought at first it was a joke: do people actually need a recipe to make a grilled cheese sandwich? Even in the furthest reaches of my imagination, it hadn't occurred to me that they would. To me, a grilled cheese sandwich is so basic and yet so unlimited in scope, that giving a recipe for it would be like giving a precise recipe for making toast: "Take a 12.5 gram, 7mm-thick slice of pain de mie purchased from XYZ bakery, put it in a Kenwood toaster on the #1 setting, and when it pops up, spread five grams of Echire unsalted butter over it, making sure to cover it to the edges. Serve immediately."

The perfect grilled cheese sandwich, like perfect toast, depends on technique, rather than a precise recipe. That's because everyone's idea of what makes it perfect is personal. Some people love two slices of puffy white bread with plastic-y tasting processed cheese in between. I'd hate that, but I wouldn't say they're wrong (at least not to their face).

The only ingredients all grilled cheese sandwiches have in common are bread and cheese. The technique for making them is similar: they have to be cooked in a pan on the stovetop - they can't be made in a toaster (the melting cheese would be a fire risk) or microwave (which would heat the sandwich and melt the cheese, but wouldn't make the exterior all nice and crusty).

So, here's my basic technique for making a grilled cheese sandwich. Heat some butter in a skillet. While it's melting, put cheese on a slice of bread and top with a second slice of bread. Use a spatula to carefully lift the sandwich and then slide it into the pan. Cook over a low flame until the bottom slice of bread is crusty and medium brown. Occasionally press on the sandwich to flatten it slightly. Put more butter into the pan, then carefully flip the sandwich over. Cook until the second slice of bread is crusty and medium brown, again, flattening it by pressing on it as it cooks. Take it from the pan and eat immediately.

Now for refinements that turn a good grilled cheese sandwich into a great one (these are personal tips, your own techniques may vary).