Lunch! Caramelised radicchio and dolcelatte on toast

Serves 4 in 30 mins-ish.

Sometimes good ideas come when you have very little in the fridge and you are forced to get creative.

One winter’s day, when I was working from home, I had the perfect ingredients:

1. The impracticality of leaving my house: it was cold outside, and I was not about to leave the warm cocoon of my flat for groceries
2. The contents of my kitchen: slightly hard bread, radicchio, onions and dolcelatte
3. A smell-driven memory: My mother caramelising onions as she was preparing dinner. Such a lovely smell  (to which I have an absolutely Pavlovian response) with such a lovely purpose - taking the sting out of onions.

To make this gooey warmer of a lunch:

To do it yourself, you need:

• 4 slices of bread - something substantial like sourdough or Poilane (which is what I used)
• 1 head radicchio washed and cut into narrow strips
• 1 small red onion
• 1 tsp olive oil
• Pinch of thyme
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• Salt & pepper to season
• Squeeze agave nectar
• One chunk dolcelatte

Heat the oil over a medium-low heat and slowly cook the onions until soft and light brown. Then add the radicchio and thyme and continue to cook until the radicchio becomes brown as well.

Then add the balsamic vinegar and a squeeze of agave nectar to counteract the acid. Cook down slightly. Season with salt and pepper.

Toast the bread and cut the dolcelatte into thin slices. Divide the radicchio amongst the bread and top with a couple slices of dolcelatte. Watch them melt!

The sweetness of the onions and dolcelatte, along with the creaminess of the cheese and underlying bitterness of the radicchio are to die for!