A Little Something In Advance

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Truthfully, I am not a very good meal-planner.  The moment I realize that I want chicken for dinner, I remember it’s still in the freezer.  Or, when I decide I want bolognese, it is going to be a couple of hours before dinner.  If these decisions occur on a weekend afternoon, so be it, but when they come at the end of a workday, it’s not nearly so leisurely and pleasant. 

As a solution, I am slowly training myself to some advance preparation.  I am always wondering what professional cooks (like my hero, Marc Vetri) do in a restaurant kitchen to prepare excellent dishes so quickly and consistently.  After reading Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halle Cookbook, I started to understand how much professionals do in advance.  While I am obviously not a professional, some of those concepts can still apply to an amateur’s home kitchen.  In this case, it’s caramelized onions. 

It started one night when I was making Nigella Lawson’s Lamb Ragu with buttermilk mashed potatoes (or mash, as she might say).  The recipe calls for store-bought onion confit (it is from her Nigella Express Cookbook, after all), but that’s not something we would ever buy.  Thus, before I do anything else, I have to make caramelized onions.  Instead of taking thirty minutes, it takes nearly an hour.  One of these days, it occurred to me that I could make the caramelized onions days in advance, store them in the fridge, and then just pull a few out when I need them.

So, what follows is my version of the Metropolitan Bakery’s caramelized onions.  They would use balsamic vinegar where I use wine, but the concept is still the same.  The key, I think, to caramelized onions is patience. It takes time to soften and sweeten, but it’s worth the wait.  The onions can compliment pasta sauces (particularly sauces with few ingredients and are not tomato-based), fill an omelette, or top off a thin-crust pizza.

Caramelized Onions

2 large yellow onions, sliced into quarter-inch think half-rounds
1/4 cup red wine
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar
(Note:  The measurements of the fat are my approximations, so use your judgment.  Also, you could use any combination of butter and olive oil you want - from all butter to no butter.)

1.  Bring a saute pan to medium heat and add the butter.  When it’s melted, add the olive oil and swirl together.
2.  Add the onions and stir to coat.  Allow them to soften at this heat (five to eight minutes), stirring occasionally.
3.  Add salt and sugar, stir, cover, and turn the heat to low.  Cook until complete soft and browned (twenty to twenty-five minutes).
4.  Uncover (typically there will so moisture in the pan at this point, which is fine - it’ll cook off).  Turn the heat to medium-high, add the wine, and stir.  Stir frequently as the moisture and the red wine cook off.  Once most of it is evaporated (the onions should be wet, but you should not see any liquid at the bottom of the pan), take off the heat.  Store in the refrigerator for up to one week.