This week has been quite a challenge for me as I have been falling sick and busy with work. Nevertheless, I did not want to miss the #steemit-ironchef weekly challenge but before I continue, I would like to once again give a shout-out to Hive account@progressivechef for hosting this great initiative and also to all the great people from this community who has been supporting this initiative by either joining the challenge itself, sponsoring the awards, creating a related sub-initiative,commenting, voting or resteeming #steemit-ironchef related posts. Everyone is welcome to participate in this challenge and if you are interested to know more or even join this challenge yourself, you can check out the link here.

Recently Hive account@progressivechef has asked for opinions and suggestions on how to improve this initiative for the year 2018, I have a few ideas and suggestions but they were all already voiced out by other great Steemians so I suppose the only thing I can think of now is please continue to keep up this great work and hopefully one day we can have a #steemit-ironchef only cookbook from all the participating Steemians in the future! If any of you have more suggestions you can drop a comment here.

Anyway, Back to topic...

PRODUCTS USED

Onion Jello

Parmesan Crisp
Gelatin
White Onions
Guinness Stout
Butter
Beef Stock
Salt
Pepper
Brown Sugar (optional)
Tomatoes (diced)

Caramelized Onion & Figs Salad

White Onions (caramelized)
Mixed Lettuce
Dried Figs
Parmesan Crisp
Sesame Dressing
Tomato (diced)
Parmesan Cheese (grated)

When I read that the main item for this week's challenge is ONIONS, I'm not sure is it due to me recovering from my sickness or what but my mind went totally blank for a while, lol. All I can think of is I want to try to do some macam yes (wannabe) kind of dish with it, but in the end I decided I will go for a simple onion soup and salad. But I want to try to add different stuffs in it to see how it will turn out. Thus, the jello and salad with some Asian dressing, lol.

PROCESS

On a parchment/baking paper, I arranged grated Parmesan cheese in a circle mold (it is actually an egg mold, lol) making sure they are arranged tightly and close to each other.

I baked the parmesan cheese at 250°c for 10minutes, and then another 3minutes to give the crisps some colour.

While the parmesan cheese crisp is baking, I sliced 6 numbers of white onions.

On a pan, I heated up and melted 2 tablesppons of butter.

I then slow cooked the onions with the butter using low heat. In between I sprinkled some beef stock into the onions to give it some flavour.

As the onions start to caramelised, I seasoned it with salt and pepper and continues to slow cooked them until they are nicely and evenly browned.

I then took out about 2 tablespoons of the caramelised onions for my salad later.

I then added in 4 small diced tomatoes into the pan and sauteed them until they soften.

I wanted to experiment and try adding a can of Guinness Stout just to see how would the flavours and taste turns out.

I let it boils for a few minutes using medium high heat, and then turned it down to low heat again to let it simmers and let the onions and tomatoes to absorb the stout flavour. Before adjusting the seasoning, I added about 1 cup of beef stock again before tasting it. Turns out, there was a slight bitter after taste from the stout, so I added 2 tablespoons of brown sugar to balanced out the taste. I tried again expecting it to be either still bitter or too sweet but surpringly for me, it turns out alright, in fact, the soup becomes delicious, lol. I then added in gelatin and stir the gelatin until it melts in the soup.

I then pour the soup into a terrine mold and let it cools and set.

Once the soup is set and has a jelly-like texture, I cut out the jello into rectangular shapes and arranged them in a mini soup bowl, one on top of each other. I then boiled the beef stock and poured over the onion jello. I finished with a piece of Parmesan crisp on top of the jello.

For my salad, I first arranged the mixed lettuce on the plate, and added a few pieces of diced tomatoes. I then cut 2 numbers of dried figs into fours and arranged them around the salad. I arranged the caramelised onions I separated earlier on top of the lettuce and drizzle a little sesame dressing on top. I finished with a little grated Parmesan cheese and broken Parmesan crisps on top of the salad.