“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” just may be one of the funniest damn television shows ever written. A detail in one of the episodes (season 2 – “The Gang Goes Jihad”) has caught the attention of several serious fans: a mysterious sandwich called a “Grilled Charlie.” Below are the results of my own reverse engineering analysis of a Grilled Charlie.
Its appearance and description in the show offer several good clues to its construction:
•Firstly, the instructions shouted by its creator, Charlie:
“A Grilled Charlie has peanutbutter last! Peanutbutter outside, chocolate inside! Butter inside, cheese outside!”
•Close inspection of the scene reveals a jar of JIF peanutbutter, a packet of American cheese slices (or cheddar), and a bottle of Hershey’s syrup next to the hotplate used to fry the “Grilled Charlie” (though other posted recipes erroneously indicate a chocolate bar).
Here’s a possible/probable way to create this:
Step 1 – Butter the bejeezus out of one side of a piece of white bread. Place the piece of bread, butter-side down, onto a hot skillet (if you’re hardcore, your skillet is on a hotplate and you’re in a filthy apartment).
Step 2 – As the butter side is frying, place a slice of cheese (American or possibly cheddar) on the top of the bread and let it melt. Then flip the bread over and fry the cheese side (you’ll need a sh*tload of butter to pull this off properly). You’ll have to keep moving it so the cheese doesn’t burn off the bread.
Step 3 – Remove the butter-cheese slice and put a new white bread slice onto the skillet (make sure there is still sufficient butter in the skillet to fry it). Fry the piece of bread, and while it is frying put Hershey’s chocolate syrup on the top side. Flip the bread over and quickly fry the chocolate side (it will actually fry if you do it right). Remove from skillet.
Step 4 – Join the two pieces of fried bread, cheese on outside, butter and chocolate on the inside. Add JIF peanutbutter to the outside of the sandwich (not clear if it goes on top of the cheese or on the opposide side of the sandwich).
Step 5 – Eat warm, with cold beer. Then prepare for the heart attack.
It is surprisingly good – a nice combination of burnt cheese, chocolate and peanutbutter.
