A tangy, tangy take on a classic, Matty Matheson's Grilled Cheese is packed with thick, hearty slices of Spam and plenty of tangy kimchi in a recipe from his cookbook “Soups, Salads, Sandwiches.”
When you use half a can of Spam per sandwich and cut the whole thing into four meaty steaks, the ground pork product is the centerpiece; For a more equitable ratio of ingredients, try halving the amount of Spam by cutting the steaks into thinner slices and still using two steaks (albeit smaller) per sandwich. (Wondering what to do with leftover Spam? Try dicing it and browning it, then adding it to fried rice.)
Matheson also subverts the conventional grilled cheese method by using the residual heat of a skillet to heat the bread as the sandwich is prepared, but it is cooked primarily in the oven, not on the stove. It's an untraditional, kimchi-enlivened version of one of the most famous sandwiches in the world, made even more exclusive thanks to a garlic sauce speckled with gochugaru.
“There really is something special about spam,” Matheson writes. “I think it's one of the greatest and most versatile ingredients. It can be fried, roasted, smoked or boiled. Any way you cook it is fire, but here it becomes this perfect storm of flavor with fatty Spam, spicy, crunchy kimchi, buttery fried bread, and America's creamy American cheese. This is as good as it gets.”
