Ham and Brie Baguette & Stress Free Caramelised Onions

Toward the end of last year a friend and I decided to try out as many bakeries as we could find, he in search of the best sourdough loaf in Perth, and I in search of the best baguette. We tried a few places here and there and had some pretty nice and then some less-nice breads. I developed a metric for my perfect baguette, which had to:

1. Elicit sudden nostalgia from my trip to Paris
2. Be so crunchy and chewy at the same time as to feel like a jaw workout
3. Play nice with other flavours whilst being great on its own

We got as far as Chu Bakery next to hyde park, and then we didn't really feel the need to keep looking any further. 
  Chu's baguettes come out of the oven at a charitable 11am, which means there won't be any fresh baguettes ready for breakfast. But if, like me, heading to and from a bakery before breakfast was a bit overly optimistic in the first place, then Chu's make for the perfect so-fresh-it's-still-warm lunch.

I stopped by The Little Cheese Shop in Bayswater and upon their recommendation picked up a D'argental Brique Lingot, a really creamy French Brie with a lovely and slightly salty finish. I caramelised some onions and chopped up a grape tomato to make a great Baguette which brought me back to the breakfasts I used to scramble together in Paris. (There we had a lady who would bring us fresh baguettes every morning, which is one of the high points of decadence in my life thus far)

Ham, Tomato, Caramelised Onion and Brie Baguette
Two slices of deli style Ham
A large grape tomato
Caramelised Onion
French Brie
Salt

I'm not going to explain how to make a sandwich.

Very Easy Caramelised Onions

A lot of cooking websites tell you even half an hour isn't nearly long enough to caramelise onions, and that you should caramelise onions as low and slow as you possibly can. I'm all for this, but when I'm whipping up lunch, sometimes as long as I have is ten or fifteen minutes. Here are a few tricks for how to speed up caramelised onions:​

1. Use as heavy a skillet as you have, preferably cast iron: Denser skillets emit more radiant heat and less direct heat, which means you have cook hotter and you will cook through the onions rather than burning the edges whilst leaving the centre uncooked.
2. Deglaze: If you see the onions blackening, rather than turning the heat down, throw a tablespoon of water in the pan (beer and cider work well too). this deglazes both the bottom of the pan, lifting all the good bits out and mixing them back in with the onions, whilst also removing any of the over-carbonated bits which would burn if unattended. 
3. Be Vigilant: Hopefully these tips give you enough extra time that you won't have to leave the onions to do anything else. Unattended onions often burn quickly, so if you absolutely need to leave them, turn the stove off or throw in a bit of water and give them a quick stir. Furthermore, the most common way I end up burning onions is after the pan is turned off, so I like to transfer cooked onions to a bowl straight away.

With these tips in mind, cook the onion as hot as you'd like (Provided you're careful), and cook for as long as you can. If they still aren't caramelising quick enough, you can fake caramelisation by adding a tablespoon each of raw sugar and balsamic vinegar.