Dear Broccoli Cheese Casserole: There comes a time in the life of every recipe when it needs its head examined. We feel it’s high time that you fess up to your reliance on canned cream of mushroom soup! Fly, be free of interloper ingredients who try to sully your good name! Except for caramelized onions. There’s always room for caramelized onions. Here, we give you your identity back. Rock on, you casserole, you. Also, you look a lot like your cousin, brie en croute!
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 large onion, thinly sliced
- 2 sheets puff pastry, frozen
- 2 cups broccoli florets
- Flour for dusting
- 1 lb brie cheese (1 whole wheel or wedges)
- 1 egg, beaten
How to Make It
- Preheat the oven to 400°F.
- Place a skillet over medium heat and add the oil. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the onion. Sauté until the onions begin to turn translucent, about 6–8 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to stir the onions for 30–35 minutes. They will become very soft and very brown. This is what you want. When done, remove the onions to a plate.
- While the onions are caramelizing, remove puff pastry sheets from the freezer and allow to thaw, folded on the counter, for about 30 minutes. Also, while the onions are taking their sweet time (see what I did there?), in a separate pot, boil or steam the broccoli florets for 3–4 minutes. When the broccoli is done, drain and remove it to a plate to cool a while we await the completion of the caramelized onions.
- Dust your counter or board with flour, unfold the puff pastry sheets and place them atop the flour, and dust with some more flour. Pinch the edges of the two pastry sheets together to form one rectangle of pastry. Using a rolling pin, roll the joined sheet to 20 x 10 inches, smoothing out all the fold seams.
- Transfer the pastry to a baking dish, letting it settle into the bottom and along the sides. (This may take some manual encouragement.) The sheet should hang from two opposite sides by several inches.
- Cut the brie wheel or wedges in half, like a sandwich roll. Place half of the brie in top of the pastry at the bottom of the baking dish. Top the cheese with the broccoli, followed by the caramelized onions. Place the remaining half of brie atop the onions. You’ve basically made a broccoli and onion sandwich with brie for bread – resist the urge to take a bite.
- Cover the brie by folding the loose, overhanging ends of the pastry over the top. Tuck any extra pastry into the sides of the baking dish. Brush the top of the pastry with beaten egg. Transfer the baking dish to the oven and bake for 30–35 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.
- Allow the casserole to cool for 10 minutes before you dig in and let the oozy cheese, broccoli, and onions free of their buttery cage!
