The Buddha Lo-Approved Sauce That Will Make Your Grilled Cheese Extra Cheesy
If you watched Buddha Lo on "Top Chef" making spotted dick with miso ice cream and beef fat caramel (you can revisit that particular spectacle on The Gram), you know that nothing this contestant does is quotidian. That's true even when he's not competing. For starters, caviar accompanies every-single dish at Huso, the caviar-obsessed restaurant he helms. The culinary star's concern for craftsmanship and quality, however, goes far beyond fish eggs.
Take, for example, the chicken eggs that Lo sources only from a specific florist when buying ingredients for the restaurant. "I swear, they have some of the best eggs in New York," he told Mashed in an exclusive interview. "I go into Chinatown to pick them up. The florist goes to Pennsylvania twice a week to go pick up these eggs." Here is a chef who bends over backward to make sure that every ingredient he uses is optimal.
The care he takes with melted cheese and toasted bread is no different. Under Buddha Lo's directive, Huso's grilled cheese offering is deliciously rococo. The sandwich may be a U.S. American classic, but at Huso, its secret is French. "One of the best cheese sandwiches in the world is a croque monsieur," Lo told Mashed. "Typically, the bechamel will be on top, but instead of doing something on top, we put it in the middle, so that becomes an added later of that cheesiness." Has he got you hooked? Lo's grilled cheese innovation does not stop at sauce.
Buddha Lo's grilled cheese includes truffles
For a Buddha Lo-approved, Huso-adjacent grilled cheese experience, you'll need to add bechamel to your sandwich and ... four different kinds of cheese. This is not the time to let mozzarella, gouda, or American shine. Instead, Lo told Mashed, he uses a mix of sharp cheddar, comté, muenster, and parmesan to bring the sandwich to life.
Because bechamel combined with four kinds of cheese is still, apparently, not awe-inspiringly sumptuous enough, Lo also adds truffles to his grilled sandwich for good measure. No, not truffle oil. "We mix [the cheeses] together with truffle slices that have been marinated," Lo explained to Mashed. "It's preserved truffles, and that way, the truffles are always good all year round. We lay the slices into the grilled cheese sandwich, and then we toast it in really good French butter, and that's the truffle grilled cheese." Oh, and serve your sandwich with some caviar as a side dish, just for kicks.