There is nothing quite as nice as a good grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, and having my friend Andrea over gave me the excuse to seek out Recipe#2 for the Cookbook Project. "Simple Italian Sandwiches" is a book that I bought around the same time that we got our panini maker years ago, and it is full of great looking and simple recipes that I had yet to try!
I had some very nice store-bought tomato bisque in the fridge, as well as some mache with last week's Lemon Thyme dressing, so I chose what I thought would be a nice compliment to those things: the Prosciutto, Bel Paese, and Sweet Onion Panini.
I had to improvise a little, since they didn't have Bel Paese cheese or ciabatta at the store. Easy enough, as I found Fontina cheese and herbed foccacia, which worked perfectly.
One of the key ingredients in this sandwich was the actual "recipe" part of this experiment. It called for something called Sweet Onions, which are slow-roasted, marinated red onions - time consuming but delicious. It makes a lot, so there is plenty to store and to share. It's a great condiment to have on hand, for sandwiches, eggs, salads, burgers - you name it.
Sweet Onions
5 medium red onions
1/2 C. extra virgin olive oil
1/4 C. balsamic vinegar
1 T. honey
1 t. freshly ground black pepper
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
- Peel onions and cut in half, then each half into 4 quarters. Put into a medium bowl.
- Add the olive oil, vinegar, honey and black pepper, toss to thoroughly coat onions.
- Pour onto a small baking sheet or into a 9 in. ovenproof skillet. Set the bowl aside.
- Cook the onions for a total of 3 hours, removing once every 1/2 hour to transfer them back to the bowl and mix thoroughly to keep the marinade distributed.
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After the onions were done, I was ready to assemble and grill our sandwiches. I cut about half of the focaccia loaf in half lengthwise, and layered on proscuitto, cheese, and a generous portion of onions.
It yielded an great result - crunchy bread, gooey cheese, mild sweet onions, and salty, tender proscuitto. Definitely a keeper!
