How to make the perfect toastie

Are toasties the ultimate comfort food? For me, they have to be in the top three at the very least. Toasties mean late nights or early suppers; they mean eating in the kitchen, standing up, or sitting on the sofa, probably in your pyjamas; they mean picking the little bits of escaped melted cheese from the pan before you plate them. They mean waning hangovers and catch-ups with close friends; they mean solitude and they mean company; they mean ease and speed, a direct route to something crisp and hot and oozing. But crucially, toasties are completely delicious. They don’t rely on nostalgia (although I have plenty of nostalgia for them) to deliver their comfort, they aren’t bland nursery food, or esoteric family favourites. Toasties hold their own.

When I was little, Sunday night suppers were Dad’s domain, and that meant toasties. He used to make them in a Breville sandwich maker, creating those distinctive triangular toastie pockets, encasing tomato and cheese that was still hotter than the sun by the time it reached your mouth. My sister and I would nibble our way around the crusts, leaving the softest, cheesiest bit of each bit until last. If Dad was trying to mix it up, we’d have corned beef and onion toasties, for which I still have a soft spot, or – Mum’s favourite – toasted sandwiches filled with tinned chicken curry. When I was at university, perhaps in a bid to recapture a bit of the home I missed, I used to make truly awful cheese and salami toasties in the microwave, the only facility available to me. Even the worst toasties are kind of great, but the best are unbeatable. Here are some tips to make yours sing off the plate:

1. Use mayo, not butter

So how do you make a really good toastie? When Dad was in charge of toasties, the received wisdom was that you had to butter the outside of the bread to achieve a bronzed finish.