Tarte d'oignon

You, too, can savor sauteed onions with cooked cream in a buttery pie crust. Just pretend you're french and call it dinner.


Ingredients:

1 pie crust: pâte brisée
2 HUGE sweet onions, or 3 smaller ones (500g)
~maybe yellow or white onions would work?
1 Shallot - optional
2 Tbs or more butter for sautéing

2 tablespoons of flour
about a cup of milk (I will go less next time)
1/2 cup of cream (again, I will go way less next time, but hey, thats a french recipe for you!)
salt and pepper

optional: grated cheese for toping - a hard white cheese is recommended, like swiss or gruyère

1. Make your crust. I tried a number of fancy recipes recently, but I came back to the fairly simple recipe I posted and linked above from my host mom Estelle. Roll it out, put it in your tart pan (I am using a square silicone cake pan... seems to work fine to me!) Use a fork to punch holes in the bottom and throw it in the oven for about 15 minutes at 180ºC/355ºF

2. Meanwhile, slice all of your onions - and your shallot! not necessary, but its as ubiquitous in French cooking as garlic is in ours, and it really does good things to any savory recipe - into fairly thin rings and turn your heavy bottomed metal pot on a medium high heat.

3. Once its hot, throw in the butter and the onion rings and stir every 2-3 minutes until there is lots of nice browning and the onions have gone limp. Sprinkle the flour over top, stir in and cook for another couple minutes. Then, pour in the milk and the cream, just a big splash at a time, and using your wooden spoon to rub some of the yummy brown off the bottom of the pan. Stop adding the milk/cream when it is as creamy as you'd like it. You can leave it on the heat until it is the thickness you'd like. Salt and pepper.

*probably, the milk is completely optional...

4. Pour the onions into the cooked crust, pour grated cheese over top if you're using it, and pop it back in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Really, seriously a rich dinner. Salad goes nicely with...