Know your onions. It all starts with them.
A recipe for Beef with Prunes
Confess: who hasn’t compiled, studio-ready for radio’s Desert Island Discs, an imaginary list of the 8 tracks we’d want with us when a dodgy cruise company shipwrecks us on Rock-Sur-Mer. The key decision is whether they should act as markers of our lives, aural reminders of our highspots, or whether they’re an opportunity to impress listeners with the range and depth of our musical appreciation. Maria Callas picked a selection made up exclusively of her own recordings. Presumably she could find none superior.
It’s chosing the single luxury we’re allowed that is the real challenge. Nothing useful is permitted, so no tool box, no matches, or outboard motors. It’s interesting (bizarre) how many women opt for a lifetime supply of lipstick or mascara, given a mirror can’t come too. Sometimes I select a wind-up radio for the voices. Sometimes I pitch for a fully dressed four poster bed so I won’t have to build a habitat. But currently, my luxury is an unlimited supply of onions.
It’s probably a factor of this time of year. When I lived in Moscow, onions disappeared completely between November and April. Those that might on rare occasions have infiltrated the farmers’ markets from the bountiful fields of Georgia were as expensive as caviare and more desired.
Try cooking without onions. They probably produce as much umami as traditional contenders anchovies and Parmesan, dried mushrooms and tomatoes, and (aside from during those bleak Soviet winters and possibly now under the deprivations of Putin), are far more cheaply and readily available.
Comfort food demands onions. No onions means no French onion soup, no Pissaladière, no chutneys or relishes; no what my Yorkshire mother called ‘bottom’ - that foundation of flavour introduced at its simplest via a mirepoix, which can’t be made without onions. Is there anything more affordably soothing than a dish of slow-roasted, thyme-sprigged, sticky, caramelised onions with a hunk of buttered brown bread?
Onions are ancient, in cultivation for at least 7000 years. While the West pillaged the continents they invaded for spices and precious metals (a ransacking objective we’re about to repeat on the Moon), onions were one of our exports. There’s not much known about the origin of onions, but there are diary records that they were shipped to North America and planted by the Pilgrims as one of their first crops. Imagine how galling it must have been to discover that the Allium tricoccum, a close relation, already grew there profusely and was widely used in Native American cooking.
No one is quite sure of the origins of the onion. There is evidence of its domestication in both western and eastern Asia, with claims it originated variously in Pakistan, Central Asia and Iran. Archaeologists working on Bronze Age settlements in China have found traces of onions that suggest they were in use there as early as 5000 BC. They were respected not just for their flavour but for their resilience to perishability over time and transportation. The Ancient Egyptians believed the onion’s orb and its internal rings represented symbols of eternal life. Pliny the Elder wrote about onions being used in Pompeii in the 1st century AD. He recorded that the Romans believed onions could help with eye ailments, improve sleep patterns, and cure everything from open sores and toothache to dog bites, lumbago and dysentery. They’re a prominent feature of the 5th century AD recipes of Apicius, which is a book not a gourmet. Having said that, while it could be the work of a Roman gourmet, Marcus Gavius Apicius, who lived around the 1st century BC, it’s more likely to have been written by various different Roman cooks of the period. Dubious runner-up for the honour is Caelius Apicius, just because one of the two Apicius manuscripts is headed “API CAE”, and a few of its recipes are attributed to a certain Apicius. But then, Caelius Apicius himself may possibly be an invention because he has never been heard of in any other context.
Is this more than you ever needed to know? Here’s extra:
The difference between the colours is that white onions are considered the least pungent, red the sharpest, and yellow somewhere between the two.
Photo by Eduardo Soares on Unsplash If you grow carrots, parsnips, parsley, celery or celeriac and find them plagued by pests, dose them with onion oil. It’s a natural pesticide that should cure the problem.
It’s the sulfuric compounds in onions that make our breath reek and provoke belching. Methionine and cystine compounds, part of the amino acid family, are converted into sulfuric acid when they reach the air, causing the nerves around the eyes to become irritated and make you tear up when you cut into an onion.
Suggestions for preventing this include keeping onions in the fridge and only slicing them when cold; halving or quartering the onions then soaking them in water to dissolve the amino acids before slicing them; wearing skiing or swimming goggles when cutting them; or - my favourite - getting used to it.
This is my onion safe, a regular feature of French kitchens which slows down the onions’ propensity to sprout or go soggy. Isn’t it nice?
To hasten winter on its way out, this hearty stew balances slow-braised beef and onions with a touch of sweetness from prunes.
1kg/2lbs chuck steak cut in 10cm/4in chunks
bottle full-bodied red wine
¼ cup Armagnac or brandy (optional, but really?)
2 medium red onions, peeled and quartered, plus 3 large red onions peeled and sliced
1 large carrot, scrubbed and quartered plus 3 large carrots scrubbed and sliced diagonally
5 cloves
1 bayleaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
6 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
12 peppercorns
120g/4oz unsalted butter
225g/8oz bacon lardons
1 tablespoon flour
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
500g/1lb prunes, preferably Prunes d’Agen or organic
225g/8oz chestnut or Paris mushrooms, stalks trimmed
24 pearl onions, peeled
1 tablespoon brown sugar
150-240 ml/5-8 fl oz beef stock to cover onions
Put the first 10 ingredients (only 2 of the 5 onions) in a mixing bowl to marinate overnight.
Melt half the butter over medium heat in a frying pan, brown the lardons, sliced onions and carrots and transfer to a lidded casserole. Remove the meat from the marinade, reserving this, pat dry and light brown in the frying pan. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute. Strain the marinade, discarding the solids, and gradually add the liquid into the meat pan, stirring. Once the sauce has thicken, transfer everything to the casserole season with the spices salt and pepper. Simmer, covered 1 1/2 hours, till the beef is tender, adding the prunes and mushrooms after an hour.
Over medium heat, add the onions to melted butter in a pan with a pinch of salt and the sugar. Pour in enough stock to just cover the onions. Stew steadily, shaking the pan occasionally, till the liquid reduces to a rich brown and the onions are cooked and glazed, about 30 minutes.
Add to the casserole dish then serve.
Made that beef & prunes a week ago to have friends over for a “Bruno” dinner.. good golly it was good!!
My onion cutting trick is to wear my contact lenses, as they stop whatever it is from making you cry.