International Onions! After all, it's the Olympics.

For the last two weeks, we've picked up bunches of delicious (and gorgeous) red torpedo onions and I have looked at them, thought about them and done nothing.

Finally, my French heritage asserted itself and I landed on two, old school, recipes from the south of France - pissaladiere and onion confit.

Southern French pizza!

Savory onion confit!

First, I found a bread, called a pissaladiere, which is essentially a French flatbread. Believed to have been introduced by the Italians during the French papacy, it is common throughout the south of France. Similar to pizza, pissaladiere generally features vegetables but no cheese.


This savory bread features cumin; it pairs  well with a cheese plate and shines as a starter with dry cocktails. The bread itself is a double rise yeast dough made with olive oil and has a texture similar to focaccia. The onions are sauteed with cumin seeds and honey and then patted into the dough before baking.

Baked to perfection!

I was very excited to find the onion confit recipe! Onion marmalade is so rich and confit is one of the very oldest methods of food preservation, having been popular in medieval times.  It adds a level of depth to steaks and burgers, and is a lively accompaniment to cheese plates or toast. My thought was to can as much of it as I could, and keep it on hand for autumn grill outs and cocktail parties. However... Six big onions (an overflowing pan full) cooked down to less than one quart of confit.

Starting with a half cup of olive oil and 6 onions, this cooked down, covered, for about 20 minutes. Then, I added bay leaves, fresh rosemary and salt and pepper and let it cook for another 20 minutes. Finally, it was time to add the red wine, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar and brown sugar to the mix.




It cooked down for yet another 20-30 minutes, looking virtually unrecognizable as the same ingredients as step one!










I'll set it aside to "mellow" for the next couple of months and bring it out for dinner in September. Another way to extend the value of our CSA!