01/15/2013

Roasted Poblano Grilled Cheese

I have been a fan of Kerrygold cheese for as long as I can remember. Their sharp Cheddars and Dubliner are simply fantastic and up there with some of the best cheeses around. With that being said, I was extremely excited when I received an email asking if I would like to be a part of the Kerrygold Food Blogger Network. I jumped at the opportunity…especially since they were going to send me 5 coupons that would allow me to purchase 5 different Kerrygold items for free. How could I turn that down?! Although it took a little while for the coupons to arrive, I was finally able to put the Kerrygold awesomeness into grilled cheese form, featuring a roasted poblano.

ingredients:

Kerrygold Naturally Softer Pure Irish Butter
Kerrygold Dubliner Cheese
Roasted Poblano Pepper
Red Onion
Sourdough

the cheese: kerrygold dubliner

Dubliner is a robust aged cow’s milk cheese with a bit of a hard texture similar to a Cheddar. In one bite you can taste the diversity of flavors – from nutty to sharp to sweet – that can only come from a natural cheese made from the milk of grass-fed cows. What might seem ambiguous is actually a well-balanced mix of cheese cultures and naturally occurring amino acids. This diversity pays off in its ability to be served alongside a full-bodied wine like Cabernet, a freshly pulled pint of Guinness, or simply melted between a few slices of crusty brown bread.

This cheese has some great, nutty flavor that just explodes in a grilled cheese sandwich. As I do love a great sharp Cheddar, this falls in line perfectly. In this particular grilled cheese, it provides a great sharp flavor that is only enhanced by the other ingredients. If you haven’t tried any Kerrygold cheeses yet, I would definitely recommend that you do. And that you start with their Dubliner. It is just too flavorful to pass up.

the butter: kerrygold naturally softer pure irish butter

Ever since I can remember, my grandmother, my mother and myself all have used Land O Lakes Salted Whipped Butter to make grilled cheese sandwiches. I don’t truly know if it adds any extra flavor, but it has definitely become a tradition that I have continued. So when I saw that Kerrygold had their own Irish butter, I was intrigued to try a new, different kind of butter on my grilled cheese creations. I originally was going to purchase their more traditional hard butter, but since Kerrygold has a new softer butter, I thought why not try that?! Plus, it made it so much easier to spread on the bread.

Our Naturally Softer Butter is unlike anything else in the world. The milk that grass-fed Kerrygold cows produce in the summer months is highest in naturally softer milkfat. We use a special process to gently churn this summer milk to create a softer, more spreadable natural butter.

In the tradition of all of our Kerrygold Irish Butters, the flavor is creamy, the color remarkably golden, and the all-natural butter is hormone-free.

Now, to be completely honest, I do not know how much affect this new, different, butter had on this particular grilled cheese. All I know is that this sandwich was absolutely delicious and so I am going to say that this butter had something to do with that.

the ingredients: roasted poblano pepper & red onion

My original plan to showcase Kerrygold was to make a simple grilled cheese, just cheese, bread and butter. However, once I was at the grocery store, I found that to be extremely boring. I wanted to display how versatile Kerrygold products are so I decided to switch it up. And that is where the poblano pepper comes in.

I have not really worked with poblano peppers but I knew enough to start by roasting it in the oven. I drizzled some olive oil over and cooked it at 400* F for about 25-30 minutes, until the skin started to bubble/wrinkle. At which point, I let it cool down for just a minute, and then I peeled off some of the skin and pulled out the top. Remember, the seeds provide a lot of the heat, so make sure to keep them.

Once the poblano was out of the oven and cooled down slightly, I started to sauté some red onion in the Kerrygold butter with some of the poblano seeds.

While the red onions were geting some color, I added in diced pieces of the poblano, including seeds and let everything sauté. Once the flavors were able to meld together, I took out the poblano/red onion mixture out of the pan and placed it on a side dish. I left the pan untouched with the flavors from the sautéed pepper and onion, as I used the exact same pan to construct and cook the final grilled cheese product.

the grilled cheese: