Onion Tarts
September 6th, 2011
Last night, I made onion tarts, inspired by a 1911 recipe from Rufus Estes’s Good Things to Eat.
GLAZED ONIONS –Peel the onions and place in a saucepan with a little warmed butter, add sugar and salt to taste, pour over a little stock. Place over a moderate fire and cook slowly till quite tender and the outside brown. Remove and serve on a dish. A little of the liquor, thickened with flour, may be served as a sauce.
I chopped up a giant sweet vidalia onion, and tossed it into an heirloom cast-iron skillet, along with a chunk of melted butter, a couple teaspoons of sugar, and a dash of salt. I didn’t have any stock, so I just covered them with a little water.
Cooking over a “moderate” flame, it took a surprisingly long time for the onions to begin browning. But oh, when they did, what fragrance wafted through our garret! There wasn’t any liquor left over to make into sauce however. Perhaps I didn’t put in enough water/stock? But the onions themselves were definitely coated in a beautiful, sweet glaze.
I made a batch of tart shells to hold the onion filling (and a few extra for raspberry jam tarts) from a modern recipe. At the last minute, I tossed some grated Emmentaler into the bottom of the shell. The hot onions melted the cheese.
I forgot to take a picture of the finished tart until I’d already taken a bite. They were delicious. And the various bits kept well overnight too — I assembled another tart this evening and heated it in the oven for a few minutes. I’m in love.
Sounds amazing. Emmentaler cheese is one of my favorites… possibly because I was (am?) a kaesespatzele addict.
Enlighten my palate — what is kaesespatzele??
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/kaese-spaetzle/detail.aspx
The picture has bacon which can occasionally be found in this recipe when I had it in Germany. But you can leave it out, it goes either way.
I’m sure you have a great tart recipe, share?
It’s tasty, but utterly modern. I’d be glad to share though — look for it later tonight or tomorrow, as soon as I get back to my recipe box. Nice to meet you, by the way!
[…] kept one set for myself. We’re still eating them — three of the dozen were filled with cheese and glazed onions. The rest have been slowly but surely spread with raspberry jam and eaten for elevenses (I […]