Cooking with Mike, part whatever
Since when has this become a cooking blog?
Seriously though, I've been on an onion kick recently. If you know me well enough, you'll know that I pretty much hated onions for a long time. I think the main issue with onions is that I primarily encountered them cooked into a mush, disintegrated into slimy, odd-shaped pieces floating in soup or stew, masquerading as cabbage.
Then I started cooking, and realized that onions are pretty exciting. You can chop them and mix with lemon juice and dijon mustard and olive oil to make a killer potato salad dressing. You can slice them into strips and roast or fry with tomatoes and/or eggplant for a hearty relish. Or - if you must go the mushy soup route - mince them to the point where they could never impersonate a poor honest piece of cabbage. I discovered fresh onions and storage onions, and vidalias and cipollines and pearls and much other oniony goodness.
So here are two of my recent experiments. They're not as polished as some of the other stuff I posted (i.e. they don't, strictly speaking, fully work) but they're ideas and I'd love feedback as always. With that disclaimer,
Roasted Cipolline Onions
~10-15 cipolline onions
~3tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Cipolline onions are small and very flat onions, slightly bigger than pearls, pretty mild and sweet. I remembered an idea that someone I know used with full size onions - making incisions through the center and about 3/4 of the way through the onion (think cake slices), salt/pepper and roast. They open up, soften, and just get generally delicious. My addition was dipping them in nice olive oil first, which was a good idea except that I basically overdid it on the oil, which smoked in the oven and didn't really make the onions look like I wanted them to. They did get nice and soft and delicious with crunchy edges, but they didn't really open up. I'm wondering if the issue is only too much oil, or if there is something about smaller onions that makes this fail. Thoughts?
Vidalia and Soy Fritters
1/2 vidalia onion
1 egg
~1/2 cup soy flour
rice milk until it looks right
~1tsp curry powder
1 dash of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
Now, before you run away at the sight of soy flour, keep in mind that I'm trying to be gluten-free here, at least until I know I'm succeeding in it and can assess results. Also, soy is 35% protein by weight and I was back from the gym. So: slice onion into short strips, make a batter from the other ingredients, coat, fry in clumps. Idea == cool. Execution? Well, the issue with any gluten-free flour is really, the lack of gluten. Stuff didn't stick together. I had beautiful golden brown outsides, and slightly-soft vidalias, and sweet nutty taste.... and insides that were fully cooked but totally not solid. Thoughts/suggestions?
So, I've been posting a pretty steady sprinkling of food-related posts. What do y'all think? Like it? What do you think about pictures added? I do photograph most of my foods, I'm just not great at it yet. What about a dedicated food blog? Do you want me to take the food stuff to a different venue? Would you read it on a different site?
Gerbil, out.
Seriously though, I've been on an onion kick recently. If you know me well enough, you'll know that I pretty much hated onions for a long time. I think the main issue with onions is that I primarily encountered them cooked into a mush, disintegrated into slimy, odd-shaped pieces floating in soup or stew, masquerading as cabbage.
Then I started cooking, and realized that onions are pretty exciting. You can chop them and mix with lemon juice and dijon mustard and olive oil to make a killer potato salad dressing. You can slice them into strips and roast or fry with tomatoes and/or eggplant for a hearty relish. Or - if you must go the mushy soup route - mince them to the point where they could never impersonate a poor honest piece of cabbage. I discovered fresh onions and storage onions, and vidalias and cipollines and pearls and much other oniony goodness.
So here are two of my recent experiments. They're not as polished as some of the other stuff I posted (i.e. they don't, strictly speaking, fully work) but they're ideas and I'd love feedback as always. With that disclaimer,
Roasted Cipolline Onions
~10-15 cipolline onions
~3tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Cipolline onions are small and very flat onions, slightly bigger than pearls, pretty mild and sweet. I remembered an idea that someone I know used with full size onions - making incisions through the center and about 3/4 of the way through the onion (think cake slices), salt/pepper and roast. They open up, soften, and just get generally delicious. My addition was dipping them in nice olive oil first, which was a good idea except that I basically overdid it on the oil, which smoked in the oven and didn't really make the onions look like I wanted them to. They did get nice and soft and delicious with crunchy edges, but they didn't really open up. I'm wondering if the issue is only too much oil, or if there is something about smaller onions that makes this fail. Thoughts?
Vidalia and Soy Fritters
1/2 vidalia onion
1 egg
~1/2 cup soy flour
rice milk until it looks right
~1tsp curry powder
1 dash of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
Now, before you run away at the sight of soy flour, keep in mind that I'm trying to be gluten-free here, at least until I know I'm succeeding in it and can assess results. Also, soy is 35% protein by weight and I was back from the gym. So: slice onion into short strips, make a batter from the other ingredients, coat, fry in clumps. Idea == cool. Execution? Well, the issue with any gluten-free flour is really, the lack of gluten. Stuff didn't stick together. I had beautiful golden brown outsides, and slightly-soft vidalias, and sweet nutty taste.... and insides that were fully cooked but totally not solid. Thoughts/suggestions?
So, I've been posting a pretty steady sprinkling of food-related posts. What do y'all think? Like it? What do you think about pictures added? I do photograph most of my foods, I'm just not great at it yet. What about a dedicated food blog? Do you want me to take the food stuff to a different venue? Would you read it on a different site?
Gerbil, out.