Monday, December 04, 2006

The best onion gratin

I have always been a fan of onions, cheese and cream. I first discovered this combination thanks to Jamie's stunning baked onions from Happy Days - onions boiled till tender then stuffed with a creamy cheesey mixture, and wrapped in pancetta or bacon, for anyone who hasn't yet tasted this unbelievably good onion recipe. The recipe for onion gratin in Cook with Jamie looks equally divine and I was sure it would go well with the braised red cabbage described below and with roast pork. To be honest the photo of these onions alone is enough to make anyone go weak at the knees; I have been eagerly anticipating them, but I wanted to cook them with something that they wouldn't overpower and that would allow them to be celebrated in their own right. Roast pork seemed ideal.

The method is easy but the cooking time is quite long. First, quarter 1 red onion per person and then break the quarters into 'petals'. Place in an oven dish and drizzle with olive oil and seasoning, before adding thyme leaves and sliced garlic. Mix, add white wine and cover with a double thickness of foil before baking for 45 minutes in an oven preheated to 200C. Remove the foil and return to the oven for 15 minutes. Lower the oven to 180 , stir creme fraiche into the onions and sprinkle with grated Gruyere and parmesan, before baking for another 15 mins or so until golden.
These onions are, as I anticipated, heavenly. They have masses of flavour and taste fantastic. They also went really well with the roast loin of pork and red cabbage. My plateful, below, was a little piece of heaven in itself. Roast meat is sometimes seen as a bit boring, and meat and two veg probably sounds very oldfashioned - but this was all absolutely delicious and a delight to eat.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow -these look great!

Kathryn said...

Thanks Kirsten - they are! They go really well with meat and dishes that can stand up for themselves. Yum. And try the Happy Days ones, too, if you haven't. But these are easier and equally good...
Kathryn

Freya said...

I love onion gratin AND red cabbage! I think they would go well with Christmas Dinner! I hope I get my digital camera soon, I really need to get some more pictures posted!
Freya x

litlove said...

These do look lovely -again, do you think you could use stock instead of wine?

On another note, I need a new pair of scales. I have old-fashioned cast iron ones that look good but are very imprecise, hard to clean and have lost nearly all their little weights (I think they slid one by one unseen into the composter). What kind of scales would you recommend to get instead??

Kathryn said...

Hi Litlove

I am not a scales professional - I have Typhoo retro pale blue scales. Very imprecise possibly but they look lovely!!!

Re the onions, I don't know - water? verjuice [but I know you avoid sugar; that must contain sugar!] - water with a twist of lemon?
A proper foodie person might know. I reckon you could easily skip the wine as long as you add creme fraiche and cheese...

Kathryn x

Anonymous said...

Just googling onion gratin and found your page. I made this recipe last night, never had gratin before, not sure if it came out as it should, it did look similar to your photo though so maybe it did! It did taste amazing. My thought was that it would taste great with steak. I ate half of it on its own and stored what I had left in the fridge to go with some meat another time.

Anonymous said...

I made this last weekend but substituted the cheese with chevre cheese and the creme fresh with low fat sour cream. It was unbelievable!

Holly said...

This dish is fantastic! My cousin's wife made it for us and I fell in love! Had to find the recipe and tried it out for myself this weekend! A culinary delight!