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Stewed Onions (Pints onion tablespoon butter)
1½ pints onion 1 tablespoon butter 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 saltspoon pepper Cut the onions in slices and boil in salted water for ten minutes; drain and return to the saucepan with the butter, salt and pepper. Cook over a hot fire for five minutes; then cook slowly for thirty or forty minutes. Drippings may be substituted for the butter if desired.
Fianneo for
A plain braise that turns sliced onions soft and sweet with almost nothing added. The measurements are given by volume, in the American style of the period, and two of the units no longer appear on measuring spoons.
- 1 1/2 pints of onionOnions were measured by the pint: 1 1/2 pints is 3 cups, roughly 1 lb of onions, or two large ones. The recipe does not say whether the measure is taken before or after slicing, nor how thick to cut them.
- A saltspoonA saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon, so half a saltspoon is 1/8 teaspoon of pepper. The seasoning here is deliberately restrained; taste again at the end.
- Hot fire, then slowFive minutes over high heat, then the long slow cooking the recipe calls for. Keep the heat low and steady for that second stage, or the onions will scorch rather than stew; the recipe does not say whether to cover the pan.
- The par-boilTen minutes in salted water softens the onions and takes off their raw bite before the butter goes in. Drain them well; carrying water into the pan means you steam rather than stew.
- Total timeThirty to forty minutes of slow cooking is not an exaggeration; the onions should end up very soft, with a little buttery liquid.
- DrippingsThe substitution named at the end is rendered fat saved from roasting, typically beef or pork. Bacon fat gives a similar effect.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; 3 cups of sliced onion cooked down makes a modest side dish for a few people.
Loose-leaf cookbooks like Mrs. Fryer's were sold as ring binders so a cook could add pages, file clippings and rearrange sections, and their vegetable chapters ran heavily to boiled-then-buttered treatments of cheap winter keepers: onions, turnips, cabbage, parsnips. The two-stage method here, a brief boil followed by a long slow cooking in fat, is often said to reflect the American domestic-science approach to onions from that era, and was taught in cooking schools as a way to make a strong vegetable mild. Measuring a sliced vegetable by the pint rather than by weight was common in the United States well into the twentieth century, since most home kitchens had graduated cups but no scale.