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Baked Onions
Put six large onions into a saucepan of water or milk and water in equal proportions, add salt and pepper, and boil until tender. When done so they can be easily mashed, work them up with butter into a paste, cover with breadcrumbs and bake in a moderate oven. Or if preferred they may be boiled whole, put into a bakingdish. covered with butter and breadcrumbs, and then baked.
A plain vegetable side from Oscar Tschirky's Waldorf kitchen, given in two versions: mashed and gratinéed, or boiled whole and browned. The instructions assume a cook who knows what a finished gratin looks like.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 350–375F. The onions are already fully cooked, so the bake is only to set the paste and colour the crumbs — 20 to 25 minutes, and finish under the broiler if the top is still pale.
- Milk and waterThe optional half-milk bath sweetens the onions and mutes their sulphur. It will scorch on a hot burner, so keep it at a bare simmer and use a heavy pan.
- Boiling timeLarge whole onions need 30 to 45 minutes depending on size; they are done when a knife slides through the centre without resistance. Undercooked onion cores stay crunchy and no amount of oven time fixes it.
- Drain hardThis is the hinge. Boiled onions hold a great deal of water, and if you mash them wet the paste will separate and flood the dish. Drain in a colander, then press gently or let them steam dry in the empty pan for a few minutes before adding butter.
- Butter quantityNone is specified. For six large onions, 3 to 4 tablespoons worked into the mash is about right, plus 2 more dotted over the crumbs so they brown rather than dry out.
- BreadcrumbsThe recipe does not specify; in this period crumbs were commonly grated at home from stale bread and were coarser than modern commercial fine crumbs. Toss them with the melted butter before scattering, which gives a more even colour.
- Onion choiceSpanish or other sweet yellow onions suit both versions; a sharp cooking onion can turn bitter when mashed and baked. Bermuda onions, common in this period, are close to today's sweet varieties.
- YieldSix large onions serves six as a side dish. The mashed version can be assembled a day ahead and baked from cold, adding about 10 minutes.
Baked and boiled onions were a fixture of American hotel and household cookery through the nineteenth century, when onions were cheap, stored well through winter, and were often recommended as healthful in cookbooks and popular medical advice of the period. This recipe's second form, whole onions dressed with butter and crumbs, is a relative of the buttered onions that appear on Thanksgiving tables; the first form, mashed to a paste, is closer to the French puree soubise. Oscar of the Waldorf published his book in 1896, and its vegetable chapters are notably plain beside the elaborate a la carte dishes the Waldorf was famous for.