The Ultimate Holiday Grilled Cheese

There are grilled cheeses and then there are grilled cheeses. When asked what he’d make for a holiday party bite, Nick delivered this creation — foie gras grilled cheese. The Riot’s kitchen crew uses a house beer or spirit in every dish and this one’s no different. Check out Nick describing and making the dish on WMTW TV (watch now) and make this at home asap.

Holiday Grilled Cheese

Ingredients
Soft potato roll (or any good quality white bread)
Fruit preserves
Foie gras
Aged cheddar sliced
bleu cheese
pickled apples

INSTRUCTIONS: melt butter in a non-stick pan, turn potato roll inside out (this will help butter soak into bread). Spread the fruit preserves on inside part of potato roll. Place cheeses over the preserves and start to melt the cheeses in the pan. Place foie gras and pickled apples over cheese once cheese has melted, close sandwich and continue to grill until both sides are golden brown.

Pickled apples

12 green apples thinly sliced into half moon shapes
2 cups spruce vinegar (recipe below)
1 cup Liquid Riot Primus beer
½ cup white sugar
2 tablespoons kosher salt
5 whole juniper berries
1 star anise
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
½ cinnamon stick
1 red beet (for coloring purposes)

INSTRUCTIONS: Heat all ingredients except apples until sugar and salt has dissolved, let simmer for additional 10 minutes. Slice apples with skin on into half-moon shapes and set into Mason jar. After the pickling liquid has simmered for 10 minutes, let cool to lukewarm. It is important to cool this slightly before pouring over apples as it will otherwise make apples too soft. Pour all ingredients over the sliced apples making sure all are submerged. This will keep up to 8 months and will get more color the longer it sits.

Spruce vinegar

Half gallon white vinegar
10 branches from spruce tree (same tree as a Christmas tree)

INSTRUCTIONS: pour room temperature vinegar over spruce tips and let sit in the refrigerator. This should be done at least 1 day in advance. This will get more spruce flavor the longer it sits and can be made weeks ahead of time and stored in a Mason jar. This will make a great Christmas present. However, don’t be like me and let your refrigerator leak as you’re wanting to start this process. I ended up having to visit a website like https:www.GraniteCityApplianceRepair.com to find appliance repairmen to have a look at why it was leaking. It’s safe to say my spruce vinegar was a couple of days later than normal!