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Onion Sandwiches
Pour salted water over thin slices of onion (or chopped onion), and let it stand for a time to extract the very strong flavor. Then spread between buttered slices of bread, seasoning with pepper, salt, and a little mustard if desired.
A three-line recipe whose only technique is the salt soak, which is what keeps raw onion from overwhelming the bread.
- The soak is the whole recipeCover the sliced onion with cold salted water and leave it long enough to take the edge off. The original specifies neither a proportion of salt nor a time; about a tablespoon of salt to a quart and 20 to 30 minutes is a reasonable modern reading. Soaking is generally held to leach out the sulphur compounds that make raw onion sharp and lingering. Drain and pat dry, or the bread turns to paste.
- "For a time"The original gives no duration. Under 10 minutes does little; much beyond an hour and the slices go limp and waterlogged. Taste a slice to judge.
- Onion choiceA sweet onion (Vidalia, Walla Walla) or a mild red needs only a short soak. A standard yellow storage onion is pungent enough to want the full half hour.
- Cut thinSlice on a mandoline or with a sharp knife to about 1/16 inch. Thick slices slide out of the sandwich and dominate the bite; the chopped version the recipe allows stays put better.
- Bread and butterButter both slices right to the edges — it seals the crumb against onion moisture. A close-grained white sandwich loaf with the crusts trimmed suits the style, though the recipe itself specifies neither.
- Mustard"A little mustard" could mean either prepared mustard or dry; if prepared, something mild rather than Dijon is the likelier reading. Mix a small amount into the softened butter rather than spreading it separately.
- Yield and timingThe original gives no yield; one medium onion will fill perhaps three or four sandwiches. Make these within an hour of serving; they weep if held overnight.
Onion sandwiches belong to the tea-table tradition that gave us cucumber and watercress sandwiches — thin bread, generous butter, one raw vegetable, no cooking at all. Their appearance in a Butterick book is no accident: the company sold dress patterns and published *The Delineator*, and its cookbook was pitched at the middle-class hostess who needed to fill a sandwich plate cheaply and correctly. The salt-water soak is often said to have been common household advice for taming raw onion long before anyone described the sulphur chemistry behind it, and it is still the reason the sandwich works. Onion sandwiches later acquired a certain mythology through James Beard, who championed a version on brioche rounds with mayonnaise and chopped parsley; the plain buttered-bread ancestor here is the older and more frugal form.