I had the best grilled cheese sandwich ever at a cafe close to my office recently.  Actually, I’d say it was the best sandwich ever, not just the best grilled cheese.  It was made with fontina and gruyere cheese with caramelized  onions.  I tried to re-create the sandwich today at home, with the tip from the cafe that they add balsamic vinegar to the onions.

I sauted yellow onions in butter until they were translucent and starting to brown, then doused them with enough balsamic vinegar to turn them dark brown.  Then I thinly sliced gouda and gruyere cheeses (my grocery store didn’t have fontina, but according to Wikipedia, gouda is a good substitute for fontina).  I buttered whole wheat bread on one side, topped with the cheeses, then the onions, then added another slice of bread and cooked the sandwich on both sides.   It was good, but I like the cafe’s sandwich better.  It had more flavor, but I’m not sure why.  Maybe adding some salt and extra vinegar to the onions would help.  They also started with a heftier bread, sliced more thickly than mine.  I’m going to try this again and see if I can get closer to their most excellent sandwich.

I served the sandwich with two salads. One was a potato salad, which I also based on a salad I’ve had at this cafe.

Here’s my recipe:

About 2 pounds small red potatoes, scrubbed and boiled

Dressing:

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 tsp mustard

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp celery seed

some freshly ground pepper

salt

Roughly cut the cooked potatoes into pieces and stir in the dressing while warm.  Serve warm or cold.

The potato salad tasted almost exactly like the cafe salad, so that was nice.

The other salad is my variation on a classic 4-bean salad.  I used green beans, wax beans, garbanzo beans, and artichoke hearts instead of any regular beans because my husband has an allergic reaction to beans.

Here’s my version of this salad:

A 15 oz can cut green beans

A 15 oz can cut wax beans

A 15 oz can garbanzo beans

A 15 oz can artichoke hearts

1 bell pepper, diced

4-5 green onions, sliced

Dressing:

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp mustard

1/2 tsp oregano

I make this the night before so it can marinate.

It was a great meal - I think I’ll make it for my parents when they come visit in a couple of weeks!

Incidentally, did you know how many cheese are named after cities?  I didn’t, but in reading about gouda, I realized gouda is named after a city in the Netherlands.  Guryere is named after Gruyeres, Switzerland (and it’s driving me crazy that I can’t figure out how to do letters with accents on iWeb).  Here are some other cheeses named after places:

Monterey Jack - Monterey, CA

Colby - Colby, WI

Cheddar - Village of Cheddar in England

Emmental - Emme valley in Switzerland

Brie - a Province in France

Edam - Town of Edam in the Netherlands

Asiago - Town in Italy

Romano - Named after Rome

Gorgonzola - Town in Italy

Roquefort - Named after some caves in France where it’s aged

Parmigiano-Reggiano - Parma, Italy

I’m sure there are more, but these are the ones I could think to look up.