Onion Tart

A recipe by Lauraine Jacobs from Winter + Food, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2008.

I compare this handout from 2008 that came with the newspaper with handouts (for $2) that came with newspapers recently. They were reduced pages from popular chefs’ books. The only problem was that the reductions had made the books unreadable. The illustrations were fine but the text had become minute. How ridiculous can it be, printing material that is only a frustration for the readers! After one sample that was the end for us. The ones published back in 2008 were carefully prepared and I still have them.

Making the pastry was the first task. It was made of 180g 00 flour, 90g butter and a little warm water. There was supposed to be an egg yolk in this but I just poured in a little cream, not the same, of course, but with four egg yolks needed in the filling I didn’t want to use another for the case. Once mixed and kneaded the case was wrapped and placed in the fridge while the filling was made.

Six onions were sliced thinly and slowly cooked in a pan with olive oil and a little butter. This took about half an hour. They were then left to cool down.

The oven was heated to 200°. The pastry was rolled out and placed in s flan tin. Four egg yolks were beaten with 250ml of cream, some ground nutmeg, and salt and pepper. The onions then went into this mix and it was placed in the pastry case. It took about half an hour to be cooked.

The tart was creamy and savoury. The slow cooked onions had broken down to become smooth and soft and their sugars had become more predominant  adding an underlay of sweetness to the flavour. A rich and somewhat indulgent tart.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔