Bread: Caramelized Onions with Goat Cheese or Feta on Bread

If you have spent any amount of time with me or my food you will know one thing: I love caramelized onions. I will look for any decent vehicle to hold the golden beauties. I love them in salad. I love them on pizza. I love them in soups. With steak. On hamburgers. Maybe I should turn this experiment around. When are caramelized onions not good? When I am really on top of my game, I caramelize a large pan of onions on Monday mornings so that I have them as an ingredient throughout the week. Just kidding. I’ve never done that before. I never really have my act together, so it would never occur to me (on a Monday morning) to prep a week’s worth of the best ingredient. But don’t you think it’s a good idea?

Last week I took food to two different families. Cream of tomato soup, focaccia, young spinach with vinaigrette, and chocolate cherry cookies. It was a good meal. But, it’s the focaccia/pizza/bread portion of the meal that won the coveted caramelized onions. I love this dish because it always turns out, it is very tasty, and turns a boring soup or salad into a really interesting and yummy meal.

To make this you will need: caramelized onions, 4 cups crumbled feta or goat cheese, and 1 recipe of my french bread dough. With your bread machine on dough setting or in a large bowl with a wooden spoon, make my french bread recipe. While that is working its magic. Make some caramelized onions. Before you start, tell yourself that this will take some time. Caramelizing onions is literally that–you warm the onions up long enough that the sugar within turns to a savory caramel. Oh my gosh I am drooling on my computer.

Caramelized Onions
3-4 large onions, sliced into half rings (about 1/8″ thick)
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon butter

Pour generous amount of olive oil into pan (3-4 Tblsp). Place all of your sliced onions into the biggest frying pan you have. you'll think you have no room, but don't worry. they'll shrink with time.

With stove on medium heat, toss onions around every 5 minutes or so. Here is where you have to stay in the kitchen and by the stove. If you leave, the onions will crisp and you won't have any caramel.

With pan on medium heat, continue stirring until onions have completely reduced to a lovely golden color. This usually takes somewhere around 30-45 minutes. Crumble the cheese while you are waiting. Be patient and watch the magic happen.

Once the dough has risen (or the dough cycle on your bread machine is complete) and the onions are caramelized, preheat the oven to 450 F. Prepare two jelly roll pans (or baker half sheets) by lining the bottoms with parchment paper and sprinkling with cornmeal. Separate your dough into two even balls. Roll each ball out into a rectangle shape that fits into the jelly roll pan/cookie sheet. I like my dough paper thin with a bit of crust. Place both sheets of dough in pans.

Sprinkle each dough sheet with feta or goat cheese and caramelized onions. Don't by shy. The more the merrier.

Bake focaccia for 15-20 minutes or until crust is slightly golden.

This bread is always devoured. When I made it last week, I kept a pan for our family. We ate all but three pieces. The next morning I had the three pieces for breakfast.

They had been sitting on the counter all night long.

Oh well, I am who I am.