Let’s discover together how to defeat sadness in the kitchen with baked onion cream.
Sometimes you can be in a really bad mood. Maybe it’s the right day for frozen pizza. But if I eat that, I feel even worse afterward. So, I experimented with many ways to overcome temporary sadness or a simple bad mood, to avoid ending up with overcooked pasta or curdled mayonnaise – which, believe me, happens and makes things worse.
My best method is to welcome the sadness and go along with it. Don’t fight it by trying challenging or new recipes, thinking you’ll distract yourself. And no cheerful music: it’s irritating. I choose a sad but beautiful song (for example Into the West by Annie Lennox), apologize to the ingredients I’ll use, because they’ll become sad too, and cook something simple that I’ve made many times: meatballs in sauce, Genoese meatloaf with grated carrots as a side or pasta with pesto with green beans and potatoes.
Some dishes are perfect for sadness. All soups are fine, which won’t be ruined by tears, along with purees and creams. But my favorite choice for beating sadness in the kitchen is baked onion cream, which allows me to have red eyes and shed a few tears, and gives me a delicious and original dish.
So I save myself, and as Scarlett said, tomorrow is another day.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Inexpensive
- Preparation time: 1 Hour 20 Minutes
- Portions: 8
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: French
- Energy 349.15 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 27.68 (g) of which sugars 11.88 (g)
- Proteins 13.55 (g)
- Fat 21.35 (g) of which saturated 8.75 (g)of which unsaturated 6.66 (g)
- Fibers 4.93 (g)
- Sodium 294.04 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 200 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for the onion cream
- 4.4 lbs onions (mixed)
- 2 egg yolks
- 4 g salt
- to taste pepper
- to taste nutmeg
- 2 tbsps flour
- 0.88 oz butter
- 2 small onions (fresh)
- Half package fresh liquid cream
- 7.05 oz Gruyère cheese (grated)
If you like onions, there are other recipes on my blog. Return to the Home and read:
• Onion Tart – How to Prepare a Genoese Tart
• Baked Onions with Provola and Eggs
• Sweet and Sour Onions – Foolproof Recipe
Tools
Individual Cocottes or a deep enough baking dish to serve at the table.
From today, you can receive all the new recipes on my blog’s Telegram channel. It’s free, and to subscribe, just open this link: this way, you’ll always be updated on recipes, secrets, tips, and news. You can receive all the recipes on your phone, without risking missing any, and without needing to enter any phone number or email address; if you ever want to leave the channel, you simply remove it.
Preparation of the onion cream
First, I peeled the onions and cried a bit.
My daughter, if she’s not in a bad mood but cheerful, when peeling onions, wears a diving mask or swimming goggles: that way, she doesn’t cry. She loves this dish, and even in her new life as a newlywed doctor, she often prepares it.
I confess I’ve never worn the diving mask.
I boiled the mixed onions, white, red, and golden, in a little salted water. Once cooked, I blended them with some of the cooking water, and while stirring, I added egg yolks, pepper, nutmeg.
I sliced the fresh small onions thinly and sautéed them in a pan, and bound with 2 level tablespoons of flour. Then I let this mixture cook for a few minutes, being careful not to burn it; it should be golden. Then I added the blended onions, adjusting the consistency with cooking water until reaching the right one. Finally, over very low heat, I cooked for a few more minutes. At this point, I added a little liquid cream and placed in the preheated oven, sprinkling the surface with grated Gruyère.
We can use individual cocottes or a single baking dish, as long as it’s suitable to bring to the table. It stays in the oven just long enough to gratinate.
Read a little more
Baked onion cream can be completed with buttered croutons roasted in the oven. If you’re sad, be careful not to cut yourself. I sincerely thank Dr. Paola, a dear family friend throughout life and a refined cook, for this recipe.
Return to the HOME to know me better by reading About Me, discover the Vegetarian Dishes, Ligurian Recipes, and all the good things that Regina in the kitchen prepares.
Follow me on Facebook, on Instagram, and now on Telegram: you’ll see you won’t struggle for dinner ideas anymore!
