Caramelized Onion-Apple Flat Bread with Blue and Goat Cheese
Caramelized Onion-Apple Flat Bread with Blue and Goat Cheese
It appears Monday’s this month all have an unintended theme: being meatless. This one is super-simple and very scrumptious. It’s one of those eats that was created with a glass of wine as an accompaniment—think a bold cabernet. Your taste buds will thank you.
I think my love of using puff pastry has been well-established by now: asparagus goat cheese puff pastry tart, apple thyme tarts, roasted butternut squash tart, and of course, the recipe that started it all, apple compote baked brie. This recipe does something just a tiny bit scary: you will be cartelizing onions. Lots of onions. You will think too many onions. But on this simple appetizer, there’s no such thing as too much onion.
The first time we made this, the scent of the caramelized onions goaded our taste buds into trying a sweet addition to the sautéing red onions: apples. It doesn’t matter what variety of apple you choose; we used Granny Smith one time and Red Delicious the second time. The onions are cooked with fresh thyme, finely minced and cooked right there with the onion. A little bit of salt and freshly-ground pepper, you have your caramelized onion topping done in less than 30 minutes.
And of course there’s the cheese. Cheesy goodness crumbled on top of the caramelized onion and apple mixture. Be patient. Put it into a preheated oven, open that bottle of Cab and wait only 20 minutes, until the pastry or flatbread is brown and the cheese gooey and melted.
Okay, I hear the complaints of carnivores who want bacon, bacon, bacon everywhere. Yes, you could sauté some chopped bacon and sprinkle that atop the flatbread before baking. But frankly, why muddy the taste of those cheeses and the onions and apples? Tell your carnivores to chill.