Panini Tips? [General]

2010 Dec 30
I bought myself a birthday gift of a Cuisinart panini maker. Having thought about it for a few years I decided it was finally time to bite the bullet when it was on sale at Costco.
I've made a couple sandwiches and am happy with the results. Any fabulous must-try recipes or tips for me?

2010 Dec 31
I made a caramelized onion and gruyere panini from Tom Colicchio's 'WichCraft book, which was phenomenal. It's basically like a french onion soup sandwich.

2010 Dec 31
I bought a dubious Villaware panini press from Costco a year or two ago and still haven't found a good use for it. It takes a long time to get up to temperature and then it kind of dries the bread out rather than toasting it... But maybe I'm just doing it wrong, so I'd be very happy to try any recipes that people can recommend!

BTW, a pet pedantic peeve of mine: panini is plural. One panino, two panini. :-)

2011 Jan 2
Ooooh caramalized onion sandwich sounds great - must try.

Panini/panino - it all tastes the same to me! :P

2011 Jan 4
FF my only suggestion is to butter the outside. Our Cuisinart works great, but does take about 5-10 minutes to heat up.

2011 Jan 4
Yeah, I usually apply butter or olive oil to the outside of my panini to crisp them up. Hopefully that fixes the problem, since I'm assuming that the press is hot enough for it to toast bread, Costco or no Costco ;)

2011 Jan 5
I love my Cuisinart panini press and use it to make Cuban Sandwiches.

I like this one :-)

www.foodnetwork.com

2011 Jan 5
I don't have room for another kitchen tool so to make panini I heat up 2 cast iron frying pans (I have 3 in different sizes) then put the panini in the larger one and set the slightly smaller one for the top part of the press--if I make more than one I try to rotate so they cook evenly. The cast iron fry pan gets more than hot enough and the weight works well for pressing. Not very elegant if you are entertaining but it works. I like pear and gruyere cheese, served with a cranberry onion compote on the side--and I slightly oil or butter the bread.