Give the onion its due
These humble yet tasty supporting players deserve a leading role on your table
Pity the poor onion. Always the culinary bridesmaid, never the bride.
Youdon’t sit down toanice bowl of onions for dinner. No onemakes onion-flavored soft drinks or, if they do, I don’twant toknowabout it.
Even the lowly garlic bulb is the sole focus of at least two restaurants inCalifornia. But onions? Nada.
Onions are the supporting players inadish— important asaflavoring, but usedonly tomake the star attraction taste better. When served aplateof carbonnades a la flamande, no one ever says, “the beef was good, but those onions were really spectacular.”
But the time has come to give thehumbleonion itsdue. Tobring it to the fore. Topeel back the layers, so to speak, of whatmakes themsogood.
Therefore, I prepared ahandfulofdishes that brought the onion out front andcenter andput it in the spotlight. With these dishes, theoft-overlookedonion is finally the bride.
I staredwith the simplest andmost straightforward of allonionentrees, anonion sandwich.
If your initial reaction to the ideaof anonion sandwich is anything likemine, right nowyouare saying “ick.” But bear withme, because I saw the recipe for it in a cookbook by Jacques Pepin, and it is his re-creation of a favorite dishhewas servedby James Beard.
Those are two of the greatest food minds of the last 80 years. If they like onion sandwiches— nothingmore than thin slices of sweet onion on white bread spreadwith a mixture of mayonnaise and mustard— then I, forone, amgoing to try them.
So I tried them. And let me tell you, Pepin and Beard knowwhat they are talking about. Sweet onions aremild enough to be eaten raw, in small doses.
And the combination of mayonnaise andmustard— which is basicallyDurkee Famous Sauce sandwich spread— is the smoothand lightly spicy counterpoint the onion needs.
Next up was a dish I’ve made several times over the years, an onion tart.
This tart takes full advantage of caramelization, an easy but fairly slowprocess that brings out all of an onion’s rich, golden sweetness. I caramelized the onions bycooking themover low heat for about a half-hour and then spread them over a sheet of puff pastry. I added kalamata olives for flavor and a fewanchovies.
Theclassical Frenchway to make this tart iswith anchovies. I happen to like anchovies, though I recognize I aminanever-shrinking minority. If you don’t enjoy them, the tart is still perfectly good without them.
Formy last dish, Iwent back tomy concept of making the onion inescapably at the forefront of the dishwith marinated slowroasted onions.
Thesimple marinade is red wine vinegar diluted with an