My version of Panini Toscano & Fox Hill Cheese Shop

Last week I posted about the award-winning grilled cheese sandwich that Chef Michael Howell made at the Grate Canadian Grilled Cheese Cook-Off. I just had to try my hand at making my own version of Panini Toscano and lucky me, I even got out to Fox Hill Cheese House whose cheese was used in this award-winning sandwich. You can find the original recipe here.

Fox Hill Cheese House is located on Church Street in Port Williams, Nova Scotia, and makes over 20 different cheeses using milk from their own Holstein cows.

The article said that the award-winning sandwich used Gouda yet the recipe calls for Havarti. At the cheese shop you can taste test all sorts of cheeses. (I recommend finishing with the curry, it is so strong that after you taste it everything will taste like curry.) As great as Gouda is, I went with my all-time favourite melting cheese… Havarti.

While you are at Fox Hill Cheese House make sure to pick up some gelato, you won’t be sorry!

Click here for recipe

Back at home I began with the aioli which is just a fancy way of saying flavoured mayonnaise. I had picked up Hellmann’s Olive Oil Mayonnaise and added the juice and zest from half a lemon to a 1/4 cup of mayonnaise and grated in one clove of garlic.

Now you know I do not normally eat pork but I I have always wanted to try Prosciutto so I bought three very thin slices for 87 cents. My Superstore did not have ciabatta buns so I bought D’Italiano Tuscan Herb Focaccia Buns which look and taste nothing like real focaccia. In fact when you slice it open it is full of air pockets just like a ciabatta bun. My Superstore no longer carries fresh figs so I omitted that ingredient completely. I put the aioli on both sides of the bun, added some slices of fresh Havarti, a few pea sprouts and topped with the Prosciutto.

See the aioli oozing out the sides? I am very picky about using lemon juice but with the garlic, this aioli is quite delicious and I even used it on a smoke sandwich this week too. There was mention of roasted red peppers but from the recipe it appears to only be in the salad which I did not make, so it is off the grill we go!

I heated up and oiled my grill press, put the sandwich in and then pushed down as hard as I could. You could just use a frying pan if you do not have a grill pan or press. The end result? A very good sandwich! For someone who does not enjoy pork that is saying a lot!

I have been living on sandwiches this week. We are in our sixth day of a record-breaking heat wave and Hurricane Earl is on its way towards us in Nova Scotia tomorrow morning. I may end up eating sandwiches for more days to come if the power goes out. If you want to hear about the hurricane I will be blogging about it on my personal blog for as long as I have power.

To everyone on the east coast in both Canada and the U.S., stay safe!