Toasted Wensleydale Muffin taken from Yorkshire Cooking with Mrs Simkins

It’s not unusual in the twenty-first century to visit a cafe or coffee shop in the hope of a nice toasted cheese sandwich for your lunch, and find yourself offered a variety of fancy paninis or ‘toasted flatbreads’ instead. Quite often, these are resplendent with a fashionable cheese that was never intended for toasting, grilling maybe, but not meltingly toasted.

This happened to me a while back. Meeting a friend for lunch in a posh supermarket cafe, I’d been looking forward to a lovely croque monsieur which they had done for a time, and had done it very nicely too. Unfortunately, it had been abandoned in favour of a 'grilled goat's cheese and mushroom flatbread'.

As I bit warily instead into a very sparingly topped and scorched pitta bread, I reflected on how much more successful a nice bit of Wensleydale on a toasted muffin would be.

So over the next week, I made myself one: fabulous! Here you are, you can have a go yourself and see what you think.

Per person

• 1 large chestnut mushroom
• ½ small red onion or equivalent
• Approximately ½ tablespoon oil, rapeseed or similar
• 1 toasting muffin
• Approximately 40g Wensleydale cheese, grated on fine side of grater
  
• Freshly ground black pepper

Slice the mushrooms and onions: the slices should be nice and thin so they cook through but not paper thin.

Cook the mushrooms and onion in the oil over a moderate heat until soft but barely coloured: keep a lid on the pan for the first few minutes of cooking.

Drain on kitchen paper.

Split the muffin and lightly toast on both sides.

Heat the grill to its highest setting.

Pile the grated Wensleydale onto the muffin halves: there’s no need to butter. Grind over a little black pepper.

Arrange the mushroom and onion slices generously on top of the cheese.

Grill until melted and bubbling.

Serve immediately with a handful of salad leaves.

Now, isn't that better than a scorched pitta bread!