Delicious delicious onions

How on earth did we end up nearly at the end of May??!  The combination of my first ever half marathon (yes, completed and all in one piece, happy with my time too, thankyouverymuch), my first embroidery project and a rather massive deadline in the day job have all conspired against leisurely time at the keyboard.  I have been cooking though – it has just been the everyday food that the family loves rather than experiments in great food for the blog.

BUT… I did chance upon the secret that I never knew for creating genuinely magnificently delicious onions.  I’m not sure where (misplaced my brain as well as those early weeks in May and all of April), but I’m sure it’s not copyrighted – it’s so damn simple – and I never knew it!

I’ve always caramelised onions with a mix of salt and sugar added, and some wine and much tending to avoid catching and burning (and probably cooking far too fast).  This is infinitely better, but does require a large, heavy bottomed saucepan and a little bit of forward planning.

Caramelised onion

Serves however many you need it for – if you are making Pissaladière, you’d aim for 6-8 onions for 8 people, if you are adding it to a pie of other ingredients or having as part of pick’n’mix pasta, then 1-3 onions might do you

Onions – red or white

For each onion*:

• 1 tbsp olive oil (but if you’ve got more than 3, I’d cut it back to ½ tbsp. each, and if you’ve got more than 8, just make sure the base of the pan is well covered… it’s not a science!)
• 1 tbsp hot water
• Salt

*So 3 onions would require 3 tbsp olive oil and 3 tbsp hot water, etc.

Heat the oil, add the onion, a good pinch or two of salt and the water.  The salt seems to be necessary for really bringing out the sweetness of the onions. Cover with a tight fitting lid and turn to the lowest setting.  Cook for an hour, stir occasionally to check they are not catching and that everything is cooking nicely (especially if you’re doing lots).  If all the water has disappeared, add some more – just remember that you’ll want to keep cooking the onions until they are meltingly soft, sweet and delicious, and all the liquid has disappeared.

Taste them and adjust for your final recipe… a dash of sherry vinegar if you want some sharpness, some seedy mustard to go on a platter with hard cheeses and gherkins, some fish stock and capers to go with fish…

Seriously delicious.  Definitely food that tastes great!

Summer Berry Tart

I made this lovely tart in early summer, when we had the first wave of raspberries at their peak – it is one of my favourite combinations – berries, lemony custard, and pastry to deliver it to your plate.  It would also work well with fresh autumn berries. 

This pudding also lends itself to all manner of shortcuts if cooking from scratch is not your thing… sweet shortcrust pastry from the freezer, a mix of custard and lemon curd, and there’s a lovely dessert that simply needs some compilation! 

 

Just remember before starting that you need to allow enough time to make the pastry, rest it, get it into the tart tin, rest it, cook it and cool it  (around 3 hours all up)… and then another couple of hours to chill the custard in the tart.

Berry Tart with Lemon Custard

Serves 8 people, approximately 27cm tart

Sweet Pastry

For best results, make this the day before and rest overnight in the fridge – if you can’t do this, make sure it rests in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before rolling out.  You can also experiment with ginger or cinnamon to add some spice to the pastry.

170g butter, just softened (not melted)

85g sugar
1 small egg, lightly beaten with a fork
1/8 tsp vanilla paste (or a few drops vanilla essence)
Zest of a lemon
260g plain flour

Using a wooden spoon, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the egg, vanilla and lemon zest.  Now add the flour and gently mix just enough to combine – it will start to stick together and come away from the sides of the bowl.  It really is important not to overmix as it will become oily and difficult to work with later.  Scoop out straight on to plastic wrap and pop into the fridge to rest.

Once rested, remove from the plastic wrap, squeeze gently to make sure it is combined (again not too much – you don’t want it to warm up), gently shape into a circle and roll out on a floured bench to about 3mm thick.  Line a loose-bottomed tart tin and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C (not fan bake).  Line the tart base with foil and fill with baking blind beads/rice etc.  Bake for 10 mins, then remove the foil and baking blind beads/rice, and bake for a further 10 mins, or until the pastry is dry, crisp and golden brown.  Remove from the oven (leave in the tart tin) and cool.

Lemony Custard

2 tbsp lemon zest (make sure there is no white pith, as this will make it taste bitter)
1 C lemon juice
1 C caster sugar
2 tsp cornflour
2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
140g butter, chopped into smallish squares
3 tbsp olive oil (not your average mass produced one – try a rich fruity boutique grower)

Whisk together all ingredients except the butter and olive oil in a medium sized, heavy based saucepan.  Bring to the boil, whisking constantly. Boil for 2 minutes (or a bit less), whisking constantly, until it thickens up – you must keep whisking to avoid scrambled eggs, and you don’t have to rapidly boil – just enough to keep bubbling and cook the flour so that it thickens up.  Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter and olive oil until combined.  Allow to cool for 10 minutes, giving the occasional stir, and then pour into the pastry case and refrigerate til firm (I would allow 2 hours for this stage).

Fruit topping

Around 3-6 punnets of summer berries (personally, I don’t think you can have too much fruit).  My version involved strawberries, blueberries and raspberries.

If time allows, slice the strawberries in half and soak overnight in a good slosh of raspberry liqueur with a sprinkling of castor sugar.  Before serving, spoon the strawberries over the tart (gently press them into the custard) and then pile the blueberries and raspberries on top.  Drizzle the juice from the sozzled strawberries over everything and serve.

If you come to ours for a barbeque…

… it’s highly likely that you’ll be on the receiving end of a butterflied leg of lamb.  This dish has so many reasons for recommending – it’s easy, healthy, tasty and any leftovers are great.  An added bonus for me is that the MOTH does all the cooking – and he is the master of the perfectly cooked butterflied leg of lamb.

These days, you can often buy a pre-butterflied leg of lamb at the supermarket (or ask your friendly neighbourhood butcher to take to a lamb leg for you).  However, boning out a leg of lamb is actually really easy if you have a good sharp knife – so get your butcher (or anyone who confesses to knowing how to do this) to show you how. 

Butterflied lamb barbeque

Serves 4 or more – depending on the size of the leg and whether it is part of a broader selection of BBQ dishes

1.3kg leg of lamb (bone in) – served four plus leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch

Bone out the leg.  Slice into the largest part of the leg so that it opens out to a fairly uniform thickness.  Or put your pre-butterflied leg into a non-reactive dish for marinating.

Basic marinade for lamb

2-5 cloves garlic
Olive oil
1 lemon
Handful of fresh thyme (or rosemary)
Salt and pepper

Finely chop the garlic or pound in a mortar and pestle with some sea salt.  Squeeze the lemon (you can also add finely grated lemon rind for extra lemony flavour – but make sure you only use the really yellow outer rind and not the bitter white pith). 

At this point, I sprinkle over a few good pinches of sea salt, a good grind of black pepper, the thyme (sprigs removed if I can be bothered, but they burn/fall off when barbequed, so no need to fuss), a few glugs of olive oil and then rub in the garlic and lemon juice.  It’s all a bit messy, but it means that the flavours of the marinade ingredients get up close and personal with the lamb, which is the whole point of the marinade.  At this point, you can leave the lamb in the fridge for up to 24 hours, turning occasionally, if you remember.

You can easily adjust your marinade to provide any number of different flavours – add crushed anchovies for a real depth of flavour (believe me, no-one will pick that the flavour is anchovies), smoked paprika for a more Spanish flavour, Moroccan spices, chilli… my only rule is to steer away from sugary ingredients (sweet chilli, honey, maple syrup, etc), as they will tend to burn before the lamb is cooked.

At least 30 minutes (preferably 1 hour) before cooking, get the lamb out of the fridge and allow to come up to room temperature – cooking from cold is too much of a shock for the lamb and will give you a tougher end result.  Heat the barbeque.

As an aside, we have a very basic gas BBQ – no fancy lid and 12 dials on the front.  Every BBQ is different and every day is different (in Wellington, the breeze varies from gale to hurricane, so cooking time always has to be adjusted).  So I can’t give you a definitive answer to how long to cook your lamb.  Put the lamb on the BBQ skin side down.  For the smallish leg that I’ve shown you here, about 12 minutes/side, with a roasting dish placed over the lamb for the second side did the trick (on a relatively calm day).  Generally speaking, you wouldn’t need longer than 15 minutes/side unless the weather is really against you.  With a lid and a good day, you may only need 10 minutes/side.  Remember to only ever turn your lamb once.

The MOTH keeps a close eye on things and will use his technical finger prod technique to judge when it is done to perfection – he is committed to delivering perfect lamb and has been honing these skills over the years.  He can now size up the depth of the lamb, the weather and the BBQ and deliver perfect results pretty much every time.

Don’t forget to rest the lamb.  This is utterly essential – take it off the BBQ, place it on a dish, loosely cover with foil (letting any steam escape) and pop a folded tea towel on top.  At least 15 minutes of resting and the lamb will relax, the cooking will be complete, and you’ll have tender pink lamb ready to slice for everyone.

Redcurrant jelly is our family’s traditional accompaniment.

 

We ate outside and the Crepescule rose looked lovely under the sun umbrella.