My friend Dion says one of the good things about TBZ is I don’t indulge in sensualist wankery about the sexual properties of food, and he told me I shouldn’t tell the internet-reading public about my experience last Saturday. He’s right; attempts to integrate food and sex are, at best, embarrassing and, at worst, unsanitary, but I can’t avoid it. Dinner last Saturday was spectacular, internet, but making it made me feel like a sex offender.
Let me back up. My mum gave me Paul Gayler’s Pure Vegetarian last Christmas, and while I’ve never heard of Mr Gayler the stuffed onions on the back cover have been calling my name. I also don’t get to see Jessie or Dion or Julian or John anywhere near often enough, so when we finally found a night when we were all free I leapt at the chance to make dinner for everyone. And it was one of the most relaxed group dinners I’ve ever hosted. Usually, by the time people arrive, the kitchen is a disaster, things still need to be made, I’m an overheated, flour-covered mess, and everyone waits politely in the living room while I curse my way around the kitchen. This time all I had to do when people arrived was make the salad, a few handfuls of watercress and curly endive turned with lemon and garlic and oil, and that was it. So as dinner party recipes go, this is definitely one of the best, too fiddly and cheese-filled for everyday, but not so complicated as to induce hypertension.
But the onions, the onions! First you bake the onions, whole and unpeeled, for a long, long time until they are tender and slightly caramelised. Innocent enough. But then you have to core the little dears, and the only way to do that, unfortunately, is to jam your thumb straight up the onion’s unwilling clacker. This is no easy task, and it takes a lot of pushing and massaging to get the core out. To make matters worse, as you’re wriggling your finger around the vegetable’s orifice it makes hideous, squelchy, R-rated sounds. Still, it has to be done. In future I’ll remove most of the onion’s middle, rather than the slim section I took out this time, as I had a hard time fitting all the filling into the defiled onions. But it is definitely worth it.
Stuffed onions in feta custard
Via Paul Gayler. Serves six
- 8 medium red onions
Knob of butter
1 brown or white onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
25g pack of dried porcini mushrooms. I was forced to buy exorbitantly priced Simon Johnson porcinis, something I never thought I’d do, so I only used around 10g. You’ll see a picture of me giving Simon Johnson the finger above. Also, I don’t smoke, I just have an unfortunate nail polish habit, hence the gross yellow nails
75g semi-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped
1/2 tsp dried oregano, or 1 tsp fresh
1/2 cup breadcrumbs, maybe more
50g cashews, chopped
Pinch cinnamon
1 egg
50g hard feta, grated
For the custard:
- Knob of butter
- 1 tbsp flour
- 300ml full-fat milk
- 300ml single cream
- 120g feta, grated
- 2 eggs, beaten
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Remove a good slice off the top and a small slice off the root end, to give the onions a flat base to stand on, but don’t peel. Place on a baking sheet and spoon a little water over each onion, then drizzle with olive oil. Cover with foil and bake for 1-2 hours, or until tender and darkend. Remove and allow to cool.
For the stuffing, soak the porcini mushrooms in hot water for half an hour. I used the soaking water to make some very basic pilaf rice, per Deborah Madison, but that’s just me. Heat a little olive oil and the butter in a large pan, add onion and garlic and cook until softened. Drain and roughly chop the mushrooms, cook for 2-3 minutes, then add the tomatoes and herbs. Finally, add the breadcrumbs, cashews and cinnamon. Transfer to a bowl, cool for a minute, then fold in the beaten egg and grated feta.
Core the onions, using the unsavoury methods described above. Roughly chop the removed cores and fold into the stuffing. Place the onions in their baking dish and stuff using two teaspoons and a lot of cursing.
To make the custard, put flour, butter and milk into a pan. Heat gently, whisking constantly until sauce thickens and becomes glossy and attractive. Remove from heat and cool slightly. Fold in cream and feta, then beat in the eggs. Pour around the onions in the baking dish, then bake for 20-25 minutes or until custard is barely set.
