Home › O › Onions, Spanish, Stewed
Onions, Spanish, Stewed
INGREDIENTS for dish for 8 persons.-5 or 6 Spanish onions, 1 1/4 pint of good broth or gravy.
AVERAGE COST, 1s.
Peel the onions, taking care not to cut away too much of the tops or tails, or they would then fall to pieces; put them into a stewpan capable of holding them at the bottom without piling them one on the top of another; add the broth or gravy and simmer very gently until the onions are perfectly tender. Dish them, pour the gravy round, and serve. Instead of using broth, Spanish onions may be stewed with a large piece of butter: they must be done very gradually over a slow fire or hot-plate, and will produce plenty of gravy.
TIME. To stew in gravy, 2 hours, or longer if very large.
SEASONABLE from September to January.
Note.-Stewed Spanish onions are a favourite accompaniment to roast shoulder of mutton.
Orange Brandy. (Excellent.)-INGREDIENTS.-To every 1/2 gallon of brandy allow pint of Seville orange-juice, 1 lb. of loaf sugar.
To bring out the full flavour of the orangepeel, rub a few lumps of the sugar on 2 or 3 unpared oranges and put these lumps to the rest. Mix the brandy with the orangejuice, strained, the rinds of 6 of the oranges, ORANGE BASKET. pared very thin, and the sugar. Let all stand in a closely-covered jar for about 3 days, stirring it 3 or 4 times a-day. When clear, it should be bottled and closely corked for a year; it will then be ready for se, but will keep any length of time. This is a most excellent stomachic when taken pure in small quantities; or, as the strength of the brandy is very little deteriorated by the other ingredients, it may be dinted with water.
TIME. To be stirred every day for 3 days.
SEASONABLE. - Make this in March.
ORANGE FRITTERS.
A plain braise that lives or dies on the shape of the onions: they must stay whole. Everything else is patience.
- Keep root and top intactThe instruction not to cut away too much of the tops or tails is the hinge of the dish. The root plate is what holds the layers together through two hours of simmering; trim it flush but do not cut into it, and peel only the papery skin.
- Spanish onionsStill sold under that name in Britain; in North America the name is generally applied to the large pale yellow onion, which is close but not identical to the marketed "sweet" onions. Something in the region of 8-10 oz each suits the dish; a smaller onion of 5 or 6 oz will be tender well inside two hours.
- A pint of brothAn imperial pint, 20 fl oz, or about 2.5 US cups. The recipe gives no depth; with this quantity and 5 or 6 large onions the liquid will come only part way up them rather than cover them, so adjust to the width of your pan.
- One layer only"Capable of holding them at the bottom without piling them" means a wide sauté pan or shallow casserole, not a deep stockpot. Stacked onions steam unevenly and the upper ones collapse before the lower ones soften.
- Heat levelVery gentle means barely a tremble at the surface, around 190F. A rolling simmer will burst the outer layers. The recipe assumes a slow fire or hot-plate; if you prefer, a covered dish in a low oven is a modern substitution that is easier to hold steady.
- The butter versionWith butter and no liquid the onions must go on the lowest possible heat under a lid; the "plenty of gravy" is water drawn out of the onions themselves. Allow 3-4 oz butter for six onions and check every twenty minutes for browning.
- ServingThe stated eight portions assume the onions are a side dish: 5 or 6 onions between eight people, so a little under one each. Reduce the cooking liquid hard after dishing if you want the sauce to nap rather than pool.
- SeasoningNothing is added but broth, so the broth carries the flavour. A pale unsalted stock will need salt, pepper and probably a spoonful of the roasting-pan juices from the mutton the note recommends.
Spanish onions were an import, sold by name in Victorian greengrocers because they were larger, milder and sweeter than the sharp English keepers, and they arrived in quantity from the autumn onward, which may be part of why the entry is marked seasonable September to January. Whole braised onions belong to a long line of English "made" vegetable dishes in which the vegetable is cooked in broth from the joint and returned to the table alongside it, and the pairing with roast shoulder of mutton reflects standard nineteenth-century practice, where onion in some form was often said to be the usual accompaniment to mutton. The average cost of a shilling, given for a dish serving eight, is a reminder of how the book was used: Beeton's readers were budgeting a household, and many entries were priced so that a mistress could check what her cook was spending.