My dad was in charge of the grill while growing up. I’m not sure if that is a good thing, or a bad thing. I only bring that up as I recall all of the times he would make barbecue chicken and basically burn the heck out of it, every time. I always recall the look on my mom’s face when he would bring in the plate full of burnt chicken pieces, all slathered in the burnt barbecue sauce. It was never a good thing, but hey, maybe he liked it that way, I have no idea. With the exception of the burnt chicken, my dad was pretty good with the grill, and smoker for that matter. There is one thing I remember watching him make and it was a cored out onion, loaded with a bit of butter, and brandy. Yes, brandy. Folks, if you have not been to Wisconsin, let’s just say people here love brandy.
So as I always have an abundance of onions, I decided to create my take on the onion and instead of using brandy, I decided to use whiskey.
Lets get started.
Ingredients:
- 1 whole onion, skin removed
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp whiskey
- salt
- pepper
- aluminum foil
Begin by carefully removing the outer skin from the onion. You want the whole onion, so no need to slice it in half like you normally would. With your knife, remove the inner core of the onion. Work your knife around about three rings of the onion, working your way down, being careful not to go all of the way through. Remove the core and reserve it for later use.
Set the onion on enough aluminum foil to completely cover and seal the onion. Next, add the butter into the hole, add the whiskey to the hole, and season with salt and pepper. Cover the onion with foil, and feel free to cover with another piece of aluminum foil over that.
Place on your preheated grill over indirect heat and cook for about 35 minutes.
When you are ready to serve, remove the onion from the grill and carefully remove the foil. Key word, careful. Place on your serving plate, and cut into it. Slice it in quarter and eat all of the petals.
The end result is an onion like no other. It has this great sweetness with a hint of salt that is perfectly balanced within the whiskey. So regardless if my dad was burning chicken, he definitely made up for it with his booze soaked onions.
Give these a shot the next time you have the grill going, and heck, if you don’t have whiskey, or brandy, try rum, or any other type of booze. Hope you enjoy.