Brak: Here's a song. It's pretty cheesey, I hope you like it!

Bum bum bum...

Cheese log, cheese log
Cylindrical and yellow.
Cheese log, cheese log
Makes Brak a happy fellow!

Cheese log, cheese log you're my friend.
Though you go straight to my rear end.
It's not your fault that I get bloated,
I ate too many cheese logs once and I exploded!
But oh how I love cheese looooooooooooooooooooooooogs!

Yes folks, it's time to don the old asbestos underpants and set speed dial for poison control at the local hospital. It's getting hot, moist and cheesy as we go for another round of Cooking with Guise!



Yum. There is nothing in the world as simple or versatile as good old Cheese on Toast. Well, ok, maybe there are things like sandwiches and circus contortionists who flunk GCSEs, who are simpler and more versatile. Ok, there are few things...or many...that are of comparable simplicity and versatility to cheese on toast, but today's cooking segment isn't about them, otherwise the title would be different. And it's not. For example, it's not Cooking With Guise - Circus Contortionist who flunked GCSEs. Though, that isn't too bad an idea.

No, today is a variation of Cheese on Toast.

Now, there are loads of ways you can cook Cheese on Toast. You can melt it in a saucepan and pour it on toast, you can grill the cheese, you can use a sandwich press to make toasties, you can iron it. There's different things you can mix with it, things like ham, ketchup, onions, brown sauce, bacon bits. There's multiple cheeses you can use, most people tend to stick with a fairly mature cheddar for it's taste, but in the past I've found cheese mixes work great: a good cheddar with Red Leicester for tang; or, cheddar and mozzarella for a lovely melt. You can even find differences in taste based on slices of cheese and grated.

In fact, throw in a few tablespoons of beer or butter and milk, some seasoning like mustard, with cheddar in to a saucepan, then ooze it over toast and you have Welsh Rarebit.

But today, we focus on an evolution that I stumbled across in stages. The first stage was in grilling cheese on toast, I used just sliced cheddar on normal bread, and it was good. Following that I added sliced mozzarella, and it was good. Then more people wanted it, so I switched from grilling to placing on a baking sheet and baking it in the oven, and it was good. Then I switched to smaller pieces of bread, which made it more cheesy and good. Then I added slices of chorizo sausage and it was good. Then I switched to grated cheeses, and it was good. Then I added spring onion, oh my god.

Hot Melted (Extra) Mature Cheddar Cheese, Mozzarella Cheese, Spring Onion and Chorizo, baked on Small Bread.

For this, I like to use a Tesco supermarket as they tend to stock everything except Spring Onion on a regular basis. I tend to buy the cheeses pre-grated and the chorizo pre-sliced, because it's easier - however, if you have a deli nearby then chunks of fresh chorizo instead of slices works great.

I have tended in the past to use fresh small bloomer loaf, however I have since discovered Warburtons medium slice short loaf, which is absolutely divine and thin enough to mean you can taste the cheese more. The reason for the smaller pieces is mainly room on baking sheet, you can get quite a bit more space usage with smaller pieces than larger slices.

I tend to go for the maturest cheese I can get, as it really compliments the other flavours.

So, the ingredients:

Spring Onions, roughly one for every three pieces of bread
Grated Cheddar Cheese
Grated Mozzarella / Mozzarella and Cheddar mix
Sliced Chorizo
Small pieces of bread

The first step is to clean the spring onion and then you want to take a sharp object - I use a knife for this, but if you have another preference then go with it - and the slice the spring onion up into little oniony discs. After you've cut the onions, stopped crying and re-attached your finger, put the onion to one side and try not to forget it.

Turn your oven on as high as it'll go, you'll be ready by the time it's fully heated.

Take your baking trays and cover them in tin foil - this is optional, but so much easier to clean up after. I use Bacofoil non-stick, which almost lives up to its name. Then you want to lay out your bread, it's up to you how you do this and how many pieces, but remember that it wont work standing up right as the topping falls off. I realise this will cost you some space, but the end result is much better if you lay them on their back and cover them in cheese...

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Sorry, my mind drifted off there.

Now, take your onion and sprinkle the onion discs over the bread. These will go underneath all the toppings and be held in place by the gooey cheese, they'll also add a bit of flavour to the bread.

Take your sharp object and tear open your cheese. If you bought the same as I did, it's just a case of sprinkling (dumping) the cheese on top of the bread. I tend to use more cheddar than mozzarella, and use the cheddar first. The cheddar has the stronger taste and the mozzarella gives a gooier, creamy top. If you are using Red Leicester and Cheddar, mix the two together before sprinkling to combine flavour better - it'll be quite strong though.

Now you can add the chorizo. Chorizo can be quite oily, like pepperoni, and some people like to heat it in a microwave or in the oven on a paper towel or piece of cloth to drain the oil out a bit. This is purely down to personal tastes, but I like to keep the oil as it sweats out and goes through the cheese to keep a taste throughout. Depending on how many you are serving depends on the amount of chorizo, but really, when you've tasted it once you'll know how much you want.

At this point you'll want to place the topped bread in a very hot place, my suggestion would be the oven. I tend to bake my cheese on toast these days because I can cook more, in less time and without risk of burning too much. I can pretty much cook fourteen pieces in about 5-10 minutes, have the cheese gooey and just a tad brown, with the crusts only just getting crisp and the underside is still soft and flexible, but thoroughly warmed.

After a few minutes, open the oven door and after brushing aside the smoke you'll see your finished product. Separate them out for everyone, take some of them back to give yourself extra and serve hot.