Gourmet Grilled Cheese Sandwich
I got this recipe from a super cooking blog. The original recipe uses Morbier cheese from France. It is a pungent, semi-soft cheese, originally used as a farmer's cheese in the olden days. It has a distinctive black ash stripe through the middle.
For me, Morbier was hard to find, so I substituted creamy Halvarti cheese instead - it is another semi-soft type. Gouda I think might have worked as well.
Also, the original recipe uses whole grain wheat bread. I used cracked wheat sourdough bread.
The ingredients are:
Sweet onion, thinly sliced
Grapeseed oil
Kosher salt
Sherry
Whole grain wheat bread
Morbier cheese, thinly sliced
D'Anjou or other sweet pear, just ripe and still firm, thinly sliced
Unsalted butter
The directions:
Over medium-low heat, caramelized your thinly-sliced sweet onion (Vidalia, Mayan, Walla Walla, etc) in grapeseed oil and a little salt. When the onion begins to turn a reddish brown, deglaze the saute pan with a little sherry and cook until dry.
Take two pieces of bread and spread softened butter on one side. Over medium heat in your skillet, toast the two slices of bread until browned, and remove from skillet. Top the browned side of your bread generously with your sliced cheese, then your sliced pear, then top with the caramelized onion. If necessary, melt a bit more butter in the skillet (however, there should be enough there already, from the first side).
Place the other piece of bread, browned side down, on the cheese pear, and onion. Place your sandwich back in the skillet and turn the heat up to medium-high. Brown each side. When finished, remove to a serving plate and eat while still warm.
This is very nice with a cup of soup.
(Kudos to Lucky Peach)
