Ingredients:
* 4 ounces cheddar
* 4 ounces pepper jack
* Sourdough
* Yellow onion
* 1 egg
* 1 can of beer
* 1 tsp. garlic powder
* 1 cup flour
* Vegetable oil
(Ignore the olive oil in this photo-- not sure why I got it out).
The recipe I was modeling my sandwich on called for making a tempura style batter, but that required more ingredients than I was willing to buy, so instead I decided to go with a good old fashioned beer batter (finally I find a use for the Miller Lite that's been in my fridge since our house warming party about 3 months ago). Making the batter was simple. Mix together the flour, the egg and the garlic powder and add 1 cup of beer.
I'm sure this would be even better if you used fancy beer, but that's not how I roll (at least not tonight).
I set that aside while I cut up the onion. I opted to cut it into thin-ish rings.
While I was making the batter and slicing the onions I was also heating about 3"-4" of olive oil in a large, deep pot. The recipe advised letting it get up to 350 degrees, but since I don't have a thermometer I just left it on the burner on high and hoped for the best. To determine if it was ready to go I coated one small onion in batter and carefully lowered it into the pot. It started to sizzle immediately, so I knew we were good to go with the frying.
From there I started coating the onions in batter in small batches and CAREFULLY placing them in the pot. The last thing you want in this scenario is scalding oil splashing up on you, so I found it best to use a fork to coat the onions in the batter and lower them into the pot, and tongs to remove the fried onions (when I used tongs for both steps, the batter on the tongs started to cook when I fished out the onions and I had a bit of a mess on my hands).
The onions didn't have to cook too long, just enough to get the outside nice and golden brown.
We continued working in small batches (me handling the batter and sous chef handling the frying)...
Until we had a nice little mound of homemade onion rings!
After lightly salting them and sampling one... or two... or several, we were ready to assemble our sandwiches.
I had already grated 4 ounces of cheddar and 4 ounces of pepper jack. We only had enough bread to make 2 real sandwiches and one heel sandwich, so I actually would've grated a little more if we had 4 full sized sandwiches.
First I spread the cheddar evenly over three pieces of bread (that had been buttered on the opposite side).
Then came the onion rings-- PILED on, which was followed by the pepper jack-- sprinkled on.
Colin also added some of his super spicy peppers to his sandwich. Clearly he hasn't learned from his painful (literally) experience with them a few weeks back. I then topped the sandwiches with the other slices of bread (also buttered on one side).
I'd like to talk a bit about the thickness of the sandwich for a minute. When we cooked the onion rings they had a tendency to all stick together as the batter fried up, so we actually had several large clumps of onion rings. Rather than try and break them apart I opted to just pile them on the sandwich. After all, we wanted to use all of them!
Next it was time to grill-- the cheese had been sitting next to the stove as we fried the onion rings, so it was already a little warm which meant it melted that much faster. So after a few short minutes in the pan we were ready to serve!
Taste Review:
Throughout the cooking process, the strongest smell were the fried onions. Anytime you deep fry something I think you get a pretty strong deep fried aroma. The first thing we tasted upon biting into the sandwich was the cheddar and the pepper jack. I was surprised to find that the pepper jack didn't overwhelm the cheddar, but acted as almost aftertaste. It gave just the right hint of pepper without taking over. The onions in the beer batter were a little sweet and their crunchiness added a lot to the sandwich.
I was worried that the sourdough would be too dense of a bread given how much filling we were working with, but as usual it proved to be the perfect choice. The bread's density helps to contain the filling and compliments it with just the right flavor.
There's a lot of cheese around the edge of the sandwich (probably because it rolls off of the onion rings as it melts), so the first few bites around the edges are like a regular grilled cheese, but when you get to the onions, the sweet and spicy combo of the onions and pepper jack is so good! Shockingly, Colin said "you don't need to add anything to this sandwich." I think he could've done with not adding his hot peppers though!
Can you see his eyes welling up? Well, I promise-- it was happening.
FINAL RESULTS:
Sandwich:
|
Onion Ring Grilled Cheese
|
Gooey-ness:
|
2.5
|
Aroma:
|
3.5
|
Appearance:
|
Looks a little like the brunch grilled cheese-- brown, white, and orange are the dominant colors.
|
Taste:
|
A |
The only reason I don't give an A+ is because the sandwich is so heavy. I wouldn't expect otherwise from any sandwich involving something deep fried, but it was still pretty intense. Colin said he wished it was a little gooier, but I think more cheese might make this too much to handle. Nonetheless, if I were to open a grilled cheese restaurant, this would be on the menu; and yay for acquiring a new skill-- deep frying. I can't wait to try beer battering again with different seasonings incorporated. My arteries are already excited.
Gooey Scale
|
Aroma Scale
|
| 1 = still cold/hard |
1 = can’t smell
a thing
|
| 2 = slightly
melted but still firm |
2 = tender waft
|
| 3 = melted evenly |
3 = makes your
stomach growl
|
| 4 = melted and slightly runny (starting
to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth
when you take a bite) |
4 = strong scent
|
| 5 = runny |
5 = overpoweringly pungent
|
| 6 = sloppy mess! |
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