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Boiled Onions (Peel desired quantity)
Peel desired quantity of rather small white or red onions. Boil them in plenty of boiling salted water, uncovered, until tender. Drain, saving the onion water for creamed onion soup for supper or next day's lunch. Season the onions generously with butter, salt, pepper and minced parsley.
A plain vegetable side that depends almost entirely on technique: uncovered boiling, hard draining, and generous butter at the end. The instruction to save the cooking water is the thrifty heart of the entry.
- Boil uncovered, and mean itThe recipe is explicit about an open pan. Cooks have long held that covering onions keeps the volatile sulphur compounds in the pot and makes them stronger-tasting and duller in colour; an open pan and a lively boil are the traditional route to sweet, pale boiled onions.
- Quantity and yield"Desired quantity" is no help at the stove. Figure 3 or 4 small onions per person, or roughly 1 1/2 lb for four as a side dish.
- Size matters more than colourSmall onions of even size, about 1 1/2 inches across, cook through at the same rate. Boiling onions and cipollini both work; supermarket "pearl onions" are smaller and will cook noticeably faster, so test them early.
- TimingExpect 15 to 25 minutes depending on size. Test with a thin skewer at the centre rather than the outer layers, which soften long before the core.
- Trim the root end shallowlyCut the root plate off flush but do not core into the onion, or the layers separate in the water and you finish with boiled onion petals rather than whole onions.
- Drain thoroughlyOnions hold a surprising amount of water between their layers. Let them sit in the colander a minute or two, then return them to the dry hot pan for a moment before buttering, or the seasoning slides off.
- The saved onion waterIt is a usable light stock, but it is salted, so any soup built on it needs no further salt until the end. Refrigerate promptly; the recipe itself envisages using it that evening or the following day.