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Fried Spanish Onions
Peel and slice two pounds of Spanish onions, place them in a fryingpan containing two heaped tablespoonfuls of butter made smoking hot, season with a tablespoonful of salt and one-fourth saltspoonful of pepper, dust them very lightly with cayenne and stir over the fire till they are tender. When done, serve them on toast, pouring over them the gravy they yield in cooking.
A plain skillet of onions that stands or falls on heat management and salt. Two things in the original need adjusting before you cook: the butter temperature and the seasoning.
- Don't take the butter to smokingButter smokes at around 300F and its milk solids scorch almost immediately after. Use a mix of butter and a neutral oil, or clarified butter, and set the pan over medium heat so the onions sweat rather than sear.
- The salt is far too muchA tablespoon of salt for two pounds of onions is roughly 18 g and will make the dish inedible by modern palates. Start with a teaspoon of kosher salt and season again at the end; the onions shed a great deal of water, and the salt concentrates as that liquid reduces.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is about a quarter teaspoon, so a quarter saltspoon of pepper is a scant sixteenth of a teaspoon — a couple of grinds. The cayenne "dust" is comparable, an eighth teaspoon at most.
- "Stir over the fire till tender" means longer than you thinkTwo pounds of sliced onions take 20 to 30 minutes over medium heat to go fully soft, and closer to 40 if you want the edges golden. Cover the pan for the first ten minutes to draw out moisture, then uncover to let it cook away.
- Pan sizeTwo pounds of raw onion is a large volume; it needs a 12-inch skillet or it will steam in a heap instead of cooking evenly. It reduces to roughly a quarter of its starting bulk.
- Spanish onionsStill sold under the name: large, mild and low in pungency, which is why they can be served as a vegetable in their own right rather than turning acrid. Vidalia or other sweet onions are a reasonable substitute; yellow storage onions will be sharper and need a little more time.
- The "gravy"There is no thickener here — the sauce is simply the onion liquor and melted butter. Don't cook it away entirely; if the pan goes dry before the onions are tender, add a spoonful of water rather than more fat.
- YieldServes four as a side or a light supper dish on toast. Use a sturdy bread, toasted dry and firm, since the onion liquid will soak it quickly.
Onions on toast belonged to the plainest end of a great hotel's repertoire. Spanish onions -- the large mild type imported in quantity to American markets by the late nineteenth century, and later grown domestically -- were prized precisely because their mildness let them be served as a vegetable in their own right rather than as a background flavoring. The finish of serving on toast with the cooking liquid poured over is the same logic behind creamed dishes and hashes of the period: bread absorbs the sauce and turns a side dish into a course.