Saturday 22 September 2012

Sweet-Sour Onions


From Best-Ever Vegetable Cookbook, Hermes House, 2000.

I had a few shallots in the cupboard so thought I would use them up with this recipe for an antipasto dish. The recipe called for pickling onions but I thought I could just as easily use the shallots.



I could not follow the recipe exactly for amounts as I had an odd few shallots so I went by guess. I added about a tablespoon butter to a small saucepan and when it had melted I added about the same amount of sugar and kept stirring until it had dissolved. In went the onions, some white wine vinegar (sufficient to half cove them) and about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. I stirred them around and added some salt and grindings of black pepper. The mix was brought to the boil and then brought down to a simmer until the onions were soft enough to be pierced with a knife. This took about 15 minutes.

The onions were served warm. They went down quickly, eaten with fresh samosas. I had in my mind that I could have the remainder the next day in a cheese sandwich but they tasted so delicious that they all went in the one sitting.

This small book was picked up cheaply from a stand somewhere and had never been actually used. This is so often the case when browsing you find something that’s going cheaply and so you pick it up and after a few days forget you have it. I intend to investigate this little book further. I think the title is clearly an exaggeration (like many titles) but the contents look worthy of trying.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔
Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔✔

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