Paninis

This past Christmas, I received a panini grill as a present from my brother, Adam, and his girlfriend, Sue. (Adam is definitely the cooler of us brothers--he is a musician who has traveled to Europe on tour, has a record deal with a reputable label, and has been on the Carson Daly show.) Natalia and I visited them at their place of employment, The Coffee Shop, this past weekend, and when asked if we had used the grill yet, I sheepishly had to reply "no."

This is not to denigrate the gift--I thought it was a great idea, but paninis are not in my regular lunch/dinner rotation, so the box containing the grill slowly gathered dust above one of the cabinets in my kitchen. Returning from Philly on Thursday, though, I was resolved to try my hand at panini making, so I cleared off some counter space and unpacked a petite grill by Bella Cucina.

While at The Coffee Shop Sue had made us a great and simple panini of tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, and basil (and maybe something else--I forget now, but it was very good). For my first effort I used fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, avocadoes, lettuce, oil and basil on a Russo's baguette.

I think my idea was impeccable. My execution, however, left much to be desired. I must have built my own panini too tall as the top grill of the machine didn't shut flat on top of the sandwich...rather it was at an angle, which had the effect of pushing all the avocado and mozzarella out onto the bottom grill. Fabulous. I tried in vain to fix the situation; pushing everything back in, repositioning the sandwiches on the grill, even trying to hold them down while I forced the grill on top. None of these were very wise ideas with a hot grill. So after a few minutes I resolved to learn from my mistakes next time, just admitted defeat, and took the paninis off the grill.

Presentation aside, they were fantastic.