Sweet and sour braised mother-of-pearl or boiled onions, flavored with vinegar and honey.
A perfect holiday supplement from Hank Shaw. Enjoy! ~ Elise
This is a nice way to eat smaller onions. I learned this recipe from Italian cookbooks where they call onions agrodolce, but the sweet and sour onion concept is pretty common.
You can totally play with flavors. Swap oils and fats — walnut oil, duck fat, sesame oil, etc. — and sweeteners (honey, brown sugar, agave nectar, etc.) and you’ll get all sorts of different results. All are good.
Sweet and sour onions
These onions are just as delicious at room temperature as they are hot.
ingredients
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1 to 1 1/2 lb cook or pearl onions
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Kosher salt
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3 tablespoon Extra virgin olive oil or butter
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3 tablespoon cidermalt or white wine vinegar
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1 tablespoon honey
method
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Peel onions:
The hardest part of this recipe is peeling the onions. If using pearl onions or small cipollini onions, blanch them in boiling water for about a minute, then plunge into ice water to stop the cooking. Cut off the root and stem ends, and the papery skin should slide off immediately.
If you’re using the larger cooking onions, like we did here, simply cut the stalk end off the onion and peel like you would a regular onion.
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Cooking onions:
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook your onions for 4 to 10 minutes or until tender. Smaller bulbs take less time. You want them al dente, not soft because they’ll cook a little longer in the pan. Drain the onions well and set aside.
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Fry onions:
Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. Heat the olive oil for a minute or two and add the onions. They will spit a little because they are full of moisture. Let them sizzle until you get some browning on a few sides of the onion, about 4 to 5 minutes.
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Pour the honey and vinegar mixture into the pan:
Meanwhile, mix the honey and vinegar vigorously until the honey dissolves. Add it to the skillet. It will spit and sizzle violently. Turn the onions to coat them with the mixture and reduce the heat to medium. Sprinkle salt over everything.
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Boil down to a syrup:
Let the vinegar-honey mixture boil down to a thick syrup. Turn the onions often to coat them evenly.
Serve hot or at room temperature, with a sprinkling of a fancy salt like fleur de sel if you have any.
| nutritional information (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 183 | calories |
| 10g | Fat |
| 22g | carbohydrates |
| 2g | protein |
