So you learned to make caramelized onions. Now what do you do with them?
Of course, the sky's the limit. You could make the tomato onion tart or the French onion
soup. But if you need a 5 minute dish that is a complete knock out, you can make the
world’s greatest grilled cheese.
This dish happened completely by accident at the end of a skiing trip about 12 years
ago. We were trying to use up all the leftovers on our last day. These leftovers happened
to be caramelized onions, cheese, apples, and nuts. I stuffed it all between bread and
voila.
I know what you are thinking -- wouldn’t any cheesy thing taste good between bread.
It certainly would. But there is something about this combination that withstood the
test of time. No other grilled cheese combination I ever made before or after that lucky accident
was quite as good. So yeah -- this one’s a keeper.
First let’s talk about the apples. If you cut the bottom of the apple off, it will be
more stable on a cutting board and easier to slice. I like my slices to be about 3 mm
thick. If that’s hard to do with a knife, you can always use a mandoline. My go to apple
variety for this sandwich is honeycrisp. You can use other varieties, but make sure the
apple has a firm texture, and good balance between sweetness and acidity.
Now let’s talk about the pan. Stainless will work fine, but the dripping cheese might
get a little stuck. Cast iron tends to have hot spots, so it doesn’t always brown evenly.
That’s why my grilled cheese pan of choice is non-stick. Let’s set it over medium heat
and add about a tablespoon of butter. This should be good for 2 sandwiches. When the
butter is melted, swirl the pan to coat it evenly and add your bread.
For grilled cheese, I like good rustic bread with a moderately open crumb -- in other words
medium holes are good, but huge holes would be counterproductive because they’ll let
the fillings escape.
Top the bread with caramelized onions (if you made them in advance, rewarm before using).
The video for caramelized onions is linked below. I like to be very generous with my
onions. I’d plan on roughly 1 medium onion per person. I know it doesn’t look like
a whole onion, but keep in mind that they shrink a lot during cooking. Sprinkle the
onions with chopped walnuts or pecans. If you have time to toast the nuts a little,
that’s great, but I don’t usually bother. After all, this is supposed to be a 5 minute
meal.
Top the nuts with apples. You might need to break them to cover the full territory. And
top the apples with good cheddar. Not the pre-sliced stuff you get at the deli counter,
but the crumbly aged stuff. My favorite one for this dish is Cabot brand “seriously
sharp” cheddar. You can certainly find older cheddars, but I don’t think they are as
good when they melt as “seriously sharp” Cabot. I try to slice my cheese the same thickness
as apples. It’s a lot thicker than the deli slices, which will give us plenty of that
delightful gooeyness.
By the time you finish assembling your sandwiches, the bottom piece of bread will likely brown
nicely. If not keep cooking until it does. Then pop the pan under the broiler just until
the cheese melts, about a minute. If your pan has a handle that’s not made out of
metal, wrap it in a wet paper towel and then a piece of foil so that the broiler doesn’t
cook your handle.
When the cheese melts, set the pan back over medium heat. Add another piece of bread on
top. Have a teaspoon of butter ready for each sandwich. Flip it over, add the butter and
place it back in the pan. Let’s do the second one.
Cook until the bread is nicely toasty and enjoy.
Add a glass of macon and this would be the most perfect autumn lunch.
Here are more culinary tutorials for you to check out and if you are ever in the Boston
area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.