Hell Raiser Grilled Onions

Short story:  A sailing student applies his engineering skills to grilling, resulting in a brilliant and tasty solution. Try to slice an onion, even thick slices, and place on the grill.  As the onion slices get some nice color and caramelize, the inner rings invariably shrink faster than the outer rings and detach, causing them to fall through the grate while cooking or when attempting to remove or turn them.  The Hell Raiser solution solves this problem!

During a recent provisioning and meal planning session with a Boat Chartering class (myself and three students), one of the students offered that he has a method to grill slices of sweet onions without them falling apart and falling through the grill grate. As an engineer, he had applied his problem-solving skills to this particular dilemma, by pushing toothpicks into the onion, prior to slicing, such that when the onion is subsequently sliced, between the toothpicks, each slice would have a toothpick buried from the outside ring to the center of the onion, holding the rings together during the cooking process, and allowing them to be removed from the grill without falling apart. Brilliant!

We bought 3 medium sweet onions for this purpose. Vidalias work wonderfully, and John prepared and cooked them according to plan, as part of our grilled and marinated chicken dinner our first night out.

I nicknamed the onions “hellraiser” onions, because once the onions have several toothpicks pushed into them, prior to slicing, they look like the head of the character in the ads and trailer for the movie, Hellraiser. (see photo)

This is a simple recipe, and thanks to John Dougherty’s engineering skills, it works great on the boat’s grill or at home. The attached photo are of this process on my home’s grill, as I wanted to try it out myself and take some hopefully decent photos of the process.

Step 1: After peeling, push a toothpick to the center of the onion every ¼ inch or so, perpendicular core of the onion. This is important, in that it is pretty much impossible to push a toothpick into an onion slice after it has been sliced.  See the resemblance to the Hellraiser character? or is it just me?

Step 2: Carefully slice midway between the toothpicks, across the grain of the onion.

Step 3: Coat both sides of the onion slices liberally with olive oil

Step 5: Place slices on hot grill and turn to char marks into both sides of the slices, or cook to level firmness desired. You will then enjoy the benefit of said embedded toothpick, which allows the slice to be turned or removed from the grill without the frustrating destruction of the succulently grilled slice!

Step 6: Eat! Enjoy!