Tuck a Pickle Into a Crispy Cheese Blanket
Photo: Claire Lower
I am a big fan of pairing pickles and dairy.I am a big fan of pairing pickles and dairy.I am a big fan of pairing pickles and dairy.I wouldn’t chase down a garlic pickle with a glass of milk, but I have been known to dip cornichons into crème fraîche and fry pickle slices in piles of shredded cheddar, and I’m not the only one obsessed with the combination. “Pickles in a blanket”—aka “chickles”— are very popular on TikTok right now. The blanket is made with cheese.
tiktok-7189796572832517418
It’s a simple two-ingredient snack: A slice of cheese is placed in a nonstick pan and, once it’s all bubbly and lacy and starting to brown on the edges, wrapped around a pickle spear (or small pickle half). From a flavor perspective, this isn’t all that different from our pickle cheese crisps (which also sprang forth from TikTok), but the ratio of pickle to cheese is much more pickle heavy, and you get the same amount of pickle in every bite.
Read more
Photo: Claire Lower
The most difficult part of making this snack is knowing when to fold the cheese around the pickle. Do it too soon, and you’ll end up with melted cheese sliding off the pickle and back into the pan. Let the cheese fry in its own grease until it’s golden brown all around the edges, with very few melted looking spots. You want lots of little holes, indicating most of the water has evaporated, allowing the cheese to crisp up once it’s removed from the pan.
Image: Claire Lower
You can use pretty much any cheese you want. Even American, which is designed to melt and stay stretchy, will transform into a cheese crisp with enough time and heat. (In fact, that’s what I used to make the pickle in a blanket you see above.) You don’t even have to use cheese slices; most frico is made with shredded cheese, and a cheese blanket made with shredded cheese folds just as well as a cheese blanket made with slices.
Either way, you’ll get a sour, juicy pickle wrapped up in a crispy…
..