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Baked Onions
12 medium sized onions 1 pint (2 cups) milk I heaping tablespoonful (I oz.) butter 2 table spoonfuls fine tapi- 1 tablespoonful chopped parsoca ley Salt and pepper Peel the onions and boil them till tender in boiling salted water. Drain and place them in a buttered casserole; pour in the milk mixed with the tapioca, then add the butter, parsley, salt and pepper. Bake in the oven for half an hour. Serve in the casserole. 6 parsnips Salt and pepper
A plain baked onion dish thickened with tapioca rather than flour, from a book built around the casserole as a stovetop-to-table vessel. The whole thing hangs on the onions being fully tender before they ever reach the oven.
- Boil the onions properly firstHalf an hour of baking in milk will not soften a raw onion. Simmer the peeled onions in salted water until a knife slides through the centre without resistance, 20 to 30 minutes for medium onions, then drain well so the milk is not diluted.
- "Casserole" hereA lidded flameproof earthenware or enamelled dish of the kind meant to go from burner to oven to table; the direction to "serve in the casserole" assumes such a vessel. Any 2- to 3-quart baking dish works.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A moderate oven, 350F, for the stated half hour is right: hot enough to set the tapioca and colour the top lightly, not hot enough to boil the milk over.
- The tapiocaThis means fine or granulated quick-cooking tapioca, not the large pearls sold for bubble tea. Two tablespoons in two cups of milk gives a loose, barely bound sauce. Stir it into the cold milk and let it stand 5 minutes before pouring.
- Milk and curdlingWhole milk over onions in a moderate oven can separate. Keeping the oven at 350F rather than higher, and covering the dish for the first 20 minutes, keeps the sauce smooth.
- QuantitiesOne heaping tablespoonful of butter is given as an ounce, so about 2 tablespoons by modern measure. Salt and pepper are unstated; the onions absorb a good deal, so season the milk assertively.
- YieldTwelve onions in two cups of milk serves six as a side dish. Add the parsley at the end rather than before baking if you want it green.
Casserole cookery became fashionable in English and American kitchens in the early twentieth century, as fireproof earthenware and enamelled iron came within reach of ordinary households and small books appeared to explain what to do with the new dish. The tapioca is of a piece with the period: granulated tapioca was promoted as a thickener for milk sauces and puddings and was often described as more digestible than a flour roux, with the advantage that it needed no separate pan. Boiled onions finished in milk are older than the vessel, a long-standing English and American dish served alongside roast meat; what the casserole added was the ability to bake and carry the dish to table in one piece of ware.