Onion appreciation
New cookbook celebrates versatility of an essential vegetable
All o with onions.
Well, most food, anyway — almost every savory dish in the world begins with a base of some kind of allium, a genus that includes onions, garlic, shallots, scallions — basically bulbs that grow green spikes and taste of pepper and sulphur. You know food is happening when you smell the onions cooking, and it is impossible to consider eating in the modern world without the existence of alliums. We would be fed, perhaps, and nourished, but would miss their distinctively pungent, umami-esque flavor the way we’d miss percussion in music, a soul in an android or love in a marriage.
It is surprising, then, that it took so long for someone to write a world-class cookbook dedicated to the humble onion. Onions Etcetera from Burgess Lea Press is a new, gorgeously photographed, blissfully accessible cookbook by husband and wife team Kate Winslow and Guy Ambrosino, and devotes all of its purple-edged pages to the worship and consumption of alliums.
Winslow and Ambrosino live in New Jersey, but met in Santa Fe when both worked for the Santa Fe Reporter about 15 years ago. Ambrosino is a photographer, and Winslow was an editor for Gourmet magazine. Onions Etcetera is their first book together.
“The onion,” Winslow says, “is an unsung hero. … We wanted to show, with this book, the breadth of using alliums. For the bistec palomilla, you lade it with onions, the brisket with Sunday gravy uses is three pounds of onions.”
The recipes in Onions Etcetera are all blissfully accessible and designed to be made in a normal person’s kitchen by someone who cooks after work.
“A lot of recipes were inspired by other people or were adapted from other people, but otherwise they’re all our own,” Winslow says. “Easy to use — that was our goal. These are recipes we use all the time. We didn’t want it to be an intimidating book. Onions shouldn’t be intimidating. We wanted it to be approachable for people to just be able to jump in and make something right away.”
The book is beautifully personal and homey, beginning with an introductory story from Ambrosino’s family about “fried water,” a depression-era recipe that his grandmother concocted that involves not much more than cooking an onion in olive oil until golden, pouring a bowlful of water over it, gently whisking in an egg and pouring that simple broth over a piece of bread. The bread is the carb, the egg is the protein, and the onion does all the rest.
“In the head notes [of the recipes], there’s generally a personal story to how we came to that recipe, an experience we had traveling, even a few from New Mexico,” Winslow says. “We really wanted to develop a book of food we liked to eat.”
Because onions are ubiquitous, the recipes span the globe: Italian dishes, Korean short ribs, Thai cucumber salad and French onion soup follow one after the other, tied together by their reliance on any of the world’s wide variety of alliums. All the major cuisines begin with onion mixtures, like Latin sofrito or the Cajun trinity or the classic spice mixes that serve as the basis for Indian food. Winslow and Ambrosino’s much-tested recipe for onion rings is also here, as is lamb stew with leeks, scallion sesame pancakes and a killer New Mexico red chile enchilada recipe. But the real hidden gems are the simple recipes for condiments, like pickled red onions, red onion jam, vadouvan,
hrous and chermoula, allium-based spice blends and add-ons that pack maximum flavor and can be stored in the fridge to be slathered on meats or vegetables for a quick and zesty meal.
And while onions can be somewhat interchangeable in recipes, the book is an illustrated guide to the picturesque varieties of onions, offering a sense of the nuances and seasonality of this oft-overlooked vegetable.
“The sweeter onions happen in spring, and the fall and winter onions get a little sharper, a little more pungent,” Winslow says. “But this is also the time of year we like to take those onions, but we cook them really slowly. Or you’re braising them with a brisket or something. That pungent falvor is going to get mellowed out over that long, slow cooking.”
Winslow and Ambrosino even have a favorite kind of onion.
“We have a soft spot for red Tropea onions, which are originally from an area along the coast of Italy,” Winslow says.
And this week, while you all go about your lives, be aware that somewhere at a hotel downtown, almost 200 people have gathered to cogitate on and discuss this humble plant on which all the delicious food in the world relies. Winslow and Ambrosino will be in town this week to appear on a panel at this year’s annual conference of the National Onion Association, an organization that, according to its director of public relations Kim Reddin, “is made up of approximately 500 members, including growers, shippers, marketers and also affiliated industry members,” all gathering to talk about growing onions, selling onions and making onions an even bigger part of our lives generally. The National Onion Association has two conferences a year in various places around the country — this year’s winter conference is in Santa Fe.
While that event is closed to the public, on Saturday, Winslow and Ambrosino will be at Counter Culture on Baca Street from 3 to 5 p.m. to sign books and chat with onion enthusiasts, and the restaurant will likely offer one or two recipes from the book as a dinner special. You can also buy the book at Collected Works — and you probably should. Onions are one of the few foods people are likely to eat every single day — and if we are what we eat, then a considerable percentage of each of us is, in fact, made of onions.
PEARL ONION TARTE TATIN
Makes 6 servings
Before you start, place your raw onions in the skillet and make sure they fit very snugly. They will shrink a bit as they cook, so if you start with a slightly crowded pan, you’ll end up with perfect coverage. We usually make this with a mix of onion types, so there’s some pretty variation in color even as they caramelize. Likewise, we call for white balsamic vinegar, as regular balsamic will darken the onions more than we like. Serve this with a crisp, sharp salad and maybe a cup of soup. FOR THE DOUGH 1½ cups all-purpose flour Kosher salt 8 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces 3 to 4 tablespoons ice water FOR THE ONIONS 1½ lbs pearl onions 3 tablespoons butter 1 tablespoon sugar kosher salt 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
Preparation: To make the dough, combine the flour and ¼ teaspoon salt in a bowl and, using your hands or a pastry cutter, quickly work in the butter, squeezing or cutting it until the floury mixture is filled with pea-sized lumps. Drizzle 3 tablespoons ice water over the mixture and stir with your hands or a fork until it just holds together when squeezed. Add the remaining water if necessary. Gather the dough into a ball and flatten slightly, then wrap well in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to a couple of days.
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Drop the onions into the water and blanch for about 30 seconds. Drain well and run under cold water. When cool enough to handle, peel and trim them. Heat the butter in a heavy 10-inch skillet, preferably cast-iron, over moderately high heat. When the butter has melted and foamed, sprinkle the sugar evenly over the bottom of the pan, followed by ½ teaspoon salt. Lay the onions in the skillet and cook, without stirring, for about 8 minutes. Give the skillet a shake to jostle the onions around a bit then continue cooking until nicely browned all over, another 4 to 5 minutes. Don’t worry if the onions are not fully tender; they will continue to cook in the oven. Drizzle the vinegar over the onions then scatter the thyme leaves over top. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vinegar is reduced and syrupy, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.
Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll out the pastry dough into an 11-inch round. Lay the pastry round directly over the onions, folding any excess dough up over the top. Bake until the pastry is golden brown, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the skillet, then place a serving plate over the skillet and carefully invert it to unmold the tarte tatin. Don’t fret if you lose any pearl onions in the transfer, simply pop them back into place. Cut into wedges and serve warm.
NOTE: If you just want some delicious glazed onions, omit the crust and simply cook the onions until they are fully tender before adding the vinegar, which should take about 10 minutes longer than noted above.
From Onions Etcetera by Kate Winslow and Guy Ambrosino, Burgess Lea Press, 2017