Grilled Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Something worth the bother.

Grilled Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
 
PB&J, fried, what more could you ask?

What you’re going to need is a frying pan or an electric skillet. These pieces of equipment have been mentioned previously but since you’ve probably forgotten all about them by now, a frying pan is usually used for comic relief in old movies and an electric skillet plugs into the wall and has a thermostat attached. (See Chapter 6, A Kitchen Contains More Than a Beer Chiller)

How about some bread? By the end of all this you should be able to bake a loaf of your own but right now just buy the best loaf you can find. A bread bakery is good, a supermarket is where you’ll usually get what you pay for. White, if you like, or if you insist on being a classicist, but spend a few more pennies and get some bread with some weight to it.

Butter. Real butter. No discussion here. All the money you lay out buying quality ingredients will return to you the first time you pass by McDonalds, drive home, and make a meal for yourself, and whoever else you invite to join you. Best to have the butter at room temperature, but, realistically, we both know you just took it out of the refrigerator. Nuke it for five seconds. No more. The bar of butter will be spreadable soon enough.

Peanut Butter.  Ingredients listed on the jar, one thing only, peanuts. Get the idea? You can play around with imposters, posers, and the rest, but go for the pure, the unadulterated, the epic, 100% or nothing.

Jelly or jam. The sweet thing. Your preference. Whatever you decide will fill the need. Experiment. Or use what you know best. It’s your show.

Ready?

Or not.

Set that electric skillet to 350 degrees or put some heat under a frying pan. Warm them up.

Take a slice of that good, solid bread you paid a couple of extra cents for and butter one side. Do the same with another slice. Two slices of bread. Two buttered sides. We are talking a sandwich here. (See Chapter 2, Buttering a Piece of Bread)

Spread some peanut butter (the pure) on the unbuttered side of one piece of bread. How much depends on you. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Same goes for the preferable jelly (or jam). Unbuttered side of other slice. Get that scrumptious spread all around that carbo delivery system.

Now if your skillet is at 350 degrees, you’re there. If you’re using a frying pan, I usually use the little bit of dancing spit method. If you spit in the pan and it dances, you’ve arrived.

Put the buttered side of the jellied slice on the pan. Take the pb slice and place it on top of the jellied slice, butter side up.

Now some folks think you should put a brick on top of this, but that makes it far too squished for the pb&j. Decompression is the theory involved here.

Let it fry for three minutes or so. It should start to brown a little.

Pick up your spatula (Chapter Five, What is that Stuff?), flip it over and let it cook for another three minutes or so until it’s a light brown, toasty and warm.

Peanut butter and jelly. All warmed up.

Eat.
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