A Better Cheese Toastie, Built on Ploughman's Relish

By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

A cheese toastie with ploughman's relish is grated cheese and a heaped teaspoon of chunky relish sealed between two buttered slices, cooked in a covered pan over medium-low heat for about 8 minutes. The relish goes on the inside face of the bread, never against the pan, where the sugar in it burns. Makes 2.

Makes 2 toasties. Prep 10 minutes. Cook 8 minutes.

Why a ploughman's relish stays where you put it

Ploughman's relish is a chutney with the fruit and vegetables cut coarse instead of blended, and that one difference is why it belongs between two slices of bread. Cheese goes properly molten somewhere around 65°C, and at that temperature a smooth relish loosens to the thickness of a sauce and finds the nearest gap in the crust. A coarse relish still has structure at the same heat. The pieces hold, the cheese sets around them, and the cut face shows a dark seam of relish instead of a burnt stripe down the outside of the bread.

There is a second, duller reason. A spoonful of coarse relish carries less loose liquid than the same spoonful of a smooth one, so less water goes into the crumb. A soggy toastie is nearly always a water problem rather than a fat problem.

The two ploughman's jars we stock, and which to open

Valley Produce Company ploughman's relish, 270g at $7.95, is described by its maker as a traditional relish for a ploughman's platter, and it is the jar this recipe is written around. A 270g jar holds roughly twenty heaped teaspoons, which is a long run of toasties. It sits with the rest of the Valley Produce Company range, which is also where the crackers come from when the cheese outlives the bread.

Bill's Ploughman's from Tasmanian Gourmet Kitchen, 360g at $16.95, is a chunkier UK-style chutney, tangier with a little heat behind it. That extra bite reads clearly through melted cheese, so open this jar when the cheddar is a plain supermarket block and needs the help. With a good aged cheddar already in the sandwich, the VPC jar leaves more room for the cheese to be heard.

The cheese: one that melts, one that tastes

Use two cheeses in roughly three parts to one. Three parts of a young melter, cheddar under about twelve months, gruyère, fontina or a mild gouda, because they stretch rather than split. One part of something older and drier for flavour. Vintage cheddar and parmesan taste of far more, but they hold less moisture and more loose fat, so alone they break into oil and grain on the way to molten. Blended, the young cheese carries the old one and you get both.

Grate it rather than slice it. Grated cheese melts in about half the time, and a toastie is a race between the middle going liquid and the outside going past golden. Sliced cheese also travels as one sheet, so it slides out of the sandwich the moment you cut it.

The bread, and what goes on the outside

Crumb matters more than the label on the bag. A tight, close crumb holds the seal: a white sandwich loaf, a pain de mie, a firm bakery sourdough. An open, holey crumb leaks, because the butter drains into the holes and the relish follows it down. Cut at about 1.5cm. Thinner and the bread is brittle before the cheese has moved, thicker and the middle never gets hot enough. Day-old bread beats fresh for the reason stale bread makes better toast: less water in it to turn to steam.

Butter goes on the outside of the bread, soft rather than melted, spread into the corners, because bare corners are where the burn starts. Mayonnaise is the swap worth knowing. It is oil, egg and a little acid rather than milk solids, so it colours evenly and is much harder to catch. It tastes less of butter, which is the trade.

One honest note before the shopping list. We sell the jar, not the loaf and not the cheese. Bread comes from your bakery or supermarket and cheese from a deli, while everything else here keeps in a cupboard for months.

Method

Method

1. Grate both cheeses into a bowl and toss them with your fingers so the older cheese runs through the younger one. Grind in the pepper.
2. Lay the four slices out and butter one face of each, edge to edge. Turn two of them buttered side down. Those two are the bases.
3. Spread the mustard thinly on the dry face of the two bases, if you are using it. A scrape, not a layer.
4. Divide half the cheese between the bases and press it flat, leaving a clear 1cm border of bare bread all the way round.
5. Spoon a heaped teaspoon of relish into the middle of each and spread it to a rough circle, well inside the cheese and nowhere near the border. This step decides whether it leaks.
6. Cover with the rest of the cheese, close each sandwich with a top slice, buttered side up, and press the border down with the flat of your hand. Cheese melting into that rim is what seals the seam.
7. Set a heavy frying pan over medium-low heat. Touch a corner of a sandwich to it: you want a quiet sizzle, not a loud one.
8. Lay both toasties in, cover the pan with a lid and cook for 4 minutes. The lid traps steam, which gets the middle moving before the crust is done.
9. Turn them, press each one down with a spatula, firmly and once, then cook uncovered for 3 to 4 minutes, until the second side is the colour of a plain biscuit and cheese shows at the edges.
10. Move them to a rack rather than a plate for 2 minutes, so the steam leaves through the base instead of soaking it, then cut on the diagonal.

Questions we get asked

What is ploughman's relish?

The sweet and sour jar from the ploughman's lunch, the cold pub plate of bread, cheese and pickle. It is a chutney cooked down with sugar and vinegar, with the fruit and vegetables left in coarse pieces rather than blended smooth. It was made to sit beside cheddar, which is why it also works inside a toastie.

What cheese melts best in a toastie?

Young cheddar, gruyère, fontina, raclette and mild gouda melt cleanly and stretch. Vintage cheddar and parmesan taste stronger but split into oil and grain, and halloumi and feta soften without ever flowing. Use three parts young melter to one part aged cheese, grated rather than sliced, about 80g per sandwich.

Should you butter the bread or the pan for a toastie?

The bread. Butter in the pan pools where the pan is hottest, so the sandwich colours in patches and soaks up the rest. Butter on the bread goes edge to edge and the slice takes only what it needs. It has to be soft enough to spread without tearing the crumb. Mayonnaise on the outside is the more forgiving option.

Can you put relish in a toastie without it leaking?

Yes, with two rules. Use a coarse relish, because a smooth one thins at melting temperature and heads for the edge. Then enclose it in cheese, with a 1cm border of bare bread all round for the cheese to seal. One heaped teaspoon per sandwich is the limit, and keep it off the outside of the bread where the sugar burns.

The jar this is built on is Valley Produce Company ploughman's relish at $7.95, with the rest of the range on the Valley Produce Company page. The mustards and chutneys that do the same job are under gourmet condiments, and the same jars go into the Christmas hampers we pack by hand. Shipping is free Australia-wide over $100, and orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post.