Rosemary Grapes and Swiss Fondue

I know the title doesn't actually sound like a grilled cheese, but I assure you it is.  This sandwich comes from The Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Academy whose recipes have been repeated hits (see: The Pilgrim, Onion Ring Grilled Cheese, and Brunch Grilled Cheese).  I was intrigued by the unique approach to this sandwich that got me thinking outside of the box in terms of how grilled cheeses can be prepared, so was looking forward to giving this one a try.  The sandwich also features grapes and two kinds of wine which, I felt, made it the perfect accompaniment for the wine and movie night that I was hosting that evening with my friend Megan.

Ingredients:
* 1 cup port
* 2 cups seedless red grapes
* Olive oil
* Balsamic vinegar (not pictured)
* Fresh rosemary
* Salt
* 4 ounces shredded Swiss cheese (in my case 6 ounces of Gruyere)
* 1 Tbsp flour (also not pictured)
* 1/2 cup dry white wine
* Crusty French bread
* Arugula

So let's get to it!  First off I put the port in a saucepan and let it simmer on low.  The recipe said for 10 minutes, but I think I had it set so low that it took longer-- but slow and steady wins the race (sometimes).  The ideal end result is a surypy port reduction.  This sounds fancy, but was actually pretty easy to make.

While the port simmered I went ahead with preparing everything else.  I put my 2 cups of grapes in a bowl and tossed them with 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt, and a sprig of rosemary (with the individual nettles removed and incorporated throughout).

I put those in a cake pan (any shallow baking dish will work) and added an additional sprig of rosemary on top (just for kicks) and baked them in a 450 degree oven for about 12 minutes.

The recipe recommends draining off the liquid, but I just let it all sit until I was ready to use the grapes.  Around the same time that this came out of the oven it appeared that my port had sufficiently reduced.

When I got a bit in my spoon it was definitely surypy in consistency, so I knew it was done (in fact, I worried that I over-reduced it, but oh well).

The only major step left at this point was preparing the cheese.  If you were using a brick of Swiss cheese and grating it then once it was grated you would need to coat the shreds in flour, but since mine was already grated it already had a sort of floury consistency coating it, so I skipped this step.  I warmed up my white wine in a saucepan on low (the recipe advises a double boiler, but since I don't have one I just hoped for the best using my saucepan).  Once it was warmed up I added in my cheese and stirred and cooked on low until the liquid had sort of cooked off/merged with the cheese to make a nice fondue-style sauce.

Now I was almost ready to prepare the sandwiches, but let's recall that I mentioned an unconventional means of preparation.  Rather than assembling the sandwiches and then grilling, this recipe called for grilling the bread before adding the ingredients (the cheese is already melted, so no need to re-cook it).  So I brushed the sides of the French bread with olive oil and grilled them up until they were nice and toasty.

Now I was ready to assemble the sandwiches.  First came a layer of the cooked grapes:

Followed by some arugula (Megan was skeptical of the bitterness, so we did half arugula on hers):

Then PLENTY of cheese sauce (yummmm):

And finally a drizzle of the port reduction:

And voila!  With the second slices of bread they were ready to be eaten!

Yummm! 

Taste Review:

I didn't notice a strong aroma aside from those created while cooking (melted cheese, toasted bread, simmering port wine).  I was worried that the grapes would be too sweet since they were such a big part of the sandwich, but they turned out to be just right.  The sweetness of the grapes blended well with the sharpness of the Gruyere and bitterness of the arugula. 

In fact, let's talk arugula a bit-- we all know it's pretty bitter, which is what led Megan to request that it be excluded from half of her sandwich.  But, she said that the bitterness is actually necessary to counterbalance the sweet grapes and sharp cheese, and that the portion of the sandwich with the arugula was much better (the part without tasted too cheesy).  She even went back and added arugula to the arugula-less portion of the sandwich.  I would agree that even though arugula is notoriously bitter, the bitterness doesn't stand out-- it just acts as a balance to the other flavors.

The port reduction is slightly sweet, but not as sweet as the grapes, so it neutralizes some of the excess sweetness.  The flavors reminded us of anything from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to a fancy salad (think pear and arugula), but in the end it was a unique (and delicious) taste all its own.

As for the cheese, I was a HUGE fan of the pre-melted variety.  We all know I love ooey gooey cheese (particularly in the form of fondue) and this was the epitome of that.  To have cheese literally dripping out of the sides of the sandwich was a unique experience, but a great one!  So I am sold on this alternative cooking method of melting the cheese and then assembling the sandwiches (although I'm not sure how well it would work if you weren't using Swiss-style fondue of some sort).

FINAL RESULTS:

 

Sandwich:	Rosemary Grapes and Swiss Fondue
Gooey-ness:	5.5
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Unique purple color that I haven't seen before (thanks to the grapes).
Taste:	B+/A-

 

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!