Cooking with Winter Onions
Onions are used to flavor many dishes but when featured as themselves they can bring powerful comfort to your winter meals. These two recipes feature large quantities of onion, sweetened by the proces...
This tart is savory and decadent, while being easy to make. It is a real crowd pleaser, great for family dinners or as part of a buffet. You can make it as a rustic free-form pie or use a baking dish and have a decorative lattice top. The lattice is a little more work because of how the tart is finished bit by bit, but it is well worth the effort. This recipe is adapted from one by Vermont baker Ken Haedrich, from his "Home for the Holidays" cookbook.
Ingredients
Cornmeal Herb Pastry
- 1½ cups unbleached flour, plus more for counter
- ½ cup stone-ground cornmeal, plus more for baking sheet
- 1 teaspoon dried basil or herbes de Provence
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into ¼-inch pieces
- 1 tablespoon cold water
Onion Filling
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 5 cups thinly sliced onions
- ½ teaspoon salt
- freshly ground pepper to taste
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- 1 cup grated raclette cheese
Instructions
Cornmeal Herb Pastry
Place flour, cornmeal, herbs and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a couple of times to blend. Add butter and pulse a few times until the mixture looks like crumbs. Add water through the chute while the food processor is running, and blend just until the mixture comes together like dough. Be careful not to overblend.
Sift a tiny bit of flour out onto the counter and turn the dough out onto it. Knead gently just enough to bring it all together well—up to 1 minute—and flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic or parchment paper and refrigerate until use. Dough can be made 3 days ahead, and even freezes well for up to a month.
Onion Filling
Melt butter over medium heat in an iron skillet or other heavy pan. Add onions and salt and sauté over low heat for 15–20 minutes, stirring frequently. The onions should turn a light golden color, but should not become mushy—they should still hold their shape. Remove from heat and set aside.
Preheat oven to 400°.
Dust a large baking sheet with cornmeal (for a free-form crust) or grease a heavy baking dish (for the lattice crust).
For the free-form crust
On a sheet of lightly floured waxed paper, roll the pastry dough into an oblong almost as wide as the paper and about 14 inches long. Invert the pastry onto the prepared baking sheet. Distribute the cooked onions over the pastry, leaving a 2-inch border all around. Fold the edges up over the filling—they will crack and buckle; just lay the pieces over each other. Grind black pepper over the surface of the tart.
Bake the tart for 15 minutes, then pull it out and spoon half of the cream over the tart. Bake for 15 minutes more, then spoon over the remaining cream and sprinkle the cheese on top. Bake for 20 minutes more, until the tart is bubbly and brown. Allow to cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then slice and serve. This tart tastes wonderful at room temperature, and is even better the next day, but it hardly ever lasts that long!
For the lattice-topped tart
On a sheet of lightly floured waxed paper, roll out ⅔ of the dough. Line the bottom and sides of the baking dish with dough. Place cooked onions evenly over the dough. Spread cheese over the onions. Roll out the remaining dough and cut into strips; weave these over the top of the dish. Pinch the ends of the lattice strips into the side of the crust. Bake for 15 minutes, then pull out and drizzle half of the cream into the openings in the lattice. Return to the oven for 15 minutes, then remove and drizzle the remaining cream into the tart. Return to the oven for a final 20 minutes. Serve as described above.
Yields one 9-inch round tart or equivalent
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