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ONIONS, BAKED (to be served with Roast Mutton, etc.)
Peel three or four medium-sized Spanish onions, and boil them in salted water for a quarter of an hour, then throw them into cold water for half an hour. Drain them well, cut them into slices half an inch in thickness, place them in a single layer in a well-buttered tin, and bake them in a quick oven, basting them occasionally with butter, until they are tender and lightly browned. Serve on a hot dish. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A simple side that comes out somewhere between roasted and confit onions. The method rests on two steps modern cooks tend to skip: the brief boil and the cold soak.
- Oven temperatureA "quick oven" is usually taken as somewhere around 400-425F, though period terms were never standardised. At that heat the slices caramelise at the edges while the butter keeps them from drying out.
- The boil and the cold soakFifteen minutes in salted water softens the onions and takes the raw bite off; the half hour in cold water stops the cooking, and probably helps the slices hold their shape when cut. The recipe gives no reason for either step.
- Drain thoroughlyThis is the hinge. Wet onions steam rather than brown, and no amount of basting will fix it. Drain, then pat the slices dry before they go into the tin.
- Spanish onionsThe large mild yellow onions still sold as Spanish; the recipe asks for medium-sized ones. A sweet variety such as Vidalia behaves the same way; a small sharp brown onion will not, and will not slice into half-inch rounds worth roasting.
- Single layerThe instruction is not decorative. Crowded slices release moisture and stew. Use two tins rather than overlap.
- BastingThe recipe says only to baste occasionally with butter and bake until tender and lightly browned; in a modern oven that is likely to take something like 30-40 minutes.
- Cost and yieldSixpence in the later nineteenth century. Six or seven portions from three or four onions makes sense as an accompaniment rather than a dish in its own right; alongside roast mutton or lamb, expect one or two slices a head.
Cassell's places this among the plain vegetable accompaniments to roast joints, where onions in some form were near-obligatory on the British table: boiled onions in white sauce, onion sauce proper, or baked as here. Onion sauce with mutton was already a fixture in English cookery long before this book appeared. Large, mild, sweet Spanish onions were imported into Britain in growing quantity through the nineteenth century, and were valued because they could be cooked whole or in thick slices as a vegetable in their own right rather than merely as a flavouring. The preliminary boil-and-plunge may reflect a period wish to tame the strength of raw onion, though the recipe itself gives no reason for it.