The Funky Kitchen

Looking back through the archives, I’ve noticed a bit of a pattern: what I really love is eating things with caramelized onions in them. I’ve made flatbread with caramelized onion, pears and brie, the lovely side dish cranberry mushroom pilaf, Swedish meatballs (yum!), foccacia for dipping in balsamic vinegar and olive oil, heartwarming potato and bacon soup, and gloriously luscious caramelized onion marmalade.

Apparently, what you readers out there (if you’re out there? I hope you are ) really love a caramelized onion or two as well. Caramelized onion marmalade has been the most often searched and viewed recipe on this blog pretty much since I started writing here.

So I made this dip. This fantastic awesome dip that is chock full of caramelized onions. The onion dip of my childhood, sour cream and onion soup mix, still holds a very special place in my heart (also, it only takes about as long to make as it does to find the onion soup mix), but this dip is pretty special. So get out your ripple chips, your celery stalks and carrot sticks. It’s time to get dipping!

Caramelized Onion and Bacon Dip

(a.k.a Pierogi Dip, because fried onions, bacon and sour cream are a pierogi’s best friend)

(the love child of these recipes from Bon Appetit and Ladies Home Journal)

2 lbs onions

3 shallots

3 cloves of garlic

4 sprigs of thyme

1/4 Cup olive oil

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

5 slices of bacon

4 tsp white wine vinegar

2 1/2 Cups sour cream

1/2 Cup Greek yogurt

2 tsp onion powder

Directions

• Get the oven heating up to 425°
• Thinly slice the onions, shallots and garlic. This is a perfect time to get out your mandolin if you have one.
• Mix the sliced alliums in a roasting pan with the thyme and olive oil. Sprinkle the salt and pepper over the works.
• Roast this mixture until gloriously caramelized, golden and broken down. Stir around and scrape the edges every 10 minutes or so to prevent burning and encourage even cooking. This will take ~1 hour.
• Let the onion mixture cool. Remove the thyme stems.
• Cook the slices of bacon until crisp, and then set aside.
• In a large bowl, combine the vinegar, sour cream, Greek yogurt, and onion powder.
• Mince up the roasted onion mixture, break the bacon into crumbles, and fold these ingredients into the creamy dip base.
• This dip will be at its best if you make it the day before you intend to eat it, the flavors really do intensify and permeate with time.
• Serve with chips, vegetables or anything else you would like to use for dipping!

This recipe makes a lot of dip! So if you aren’t feeding a crowd of dippers, feel free to decrease the size. We served it at a party, where it disappeared fast.

The really cool thing to take away from this recipe, other than the recipe of course, is the technique used to caramelize the onions. Stick it in the oven and stir once in a while, rather than have it in a pan on the stove top and stir a lot ore often? I’m going to take this technique elsewhere in the future, I’m sure.

Mr says: This ain’t your mama’s onion dip!

This time last year: Butter Tarts

And the year before: Labneh Cheater Tortellini

Now that the weather has sweetened and the grass has greened Trooper the Wonder Puppy and I have been spending a lot more time outside. It seems that we are of one mind about this May weather being much more clement than past months. It’s just so nice out! (When it isn’t raining…)

Trooper has developed a really adorable habit on our walks. Dandelions are his enemy. When he comes across them in his path he pounces on them and gets all snarly bounding and leaping from weed to weed, biting off the blooms, leaving the wreckage behind him.

What dandelions ever did to him, I don’t think I’ll ever know, but he sure is adorable in the process. Trooper the Wonder Puppy is a friend to gardeners and a scourge to the dandelion population.

Trooper is also very interested in salads when they smell like bacon.

Spinach and Bacon Salad with Pickled Red Onion and Feta

(adapted from Chef Michael Smith’s Kitchen: 100 of My Favorite Recipes)

For the onions:

1 Cup sugar

1 Cup apple cider vinegar

1 tsp sriracha sauce

1 tsp freshly cracked pepper

pinch of salt

1 large red onion

For the salad:

8 slices of bacon

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp Dijon mustard

salt and pepper

12 ounces spinach

6 ounces feta cheese

Directions

• Pickle the onions first. This can be done a day ahead. In a small saucepan, boil together the sugar, apple cider vinegar, sriracha, salt and pepper.
• Cut the onion into very thin rounds (if you have a mandoline, this is the perfect time for it.
• Add the onion to the pickling liquid and continue to simmer for 2 minutes.
• Allow to cool.
• Cook the bacon in a pan, reserving 1 Tbsp of the fat once finished.
• Dice the bacon.
• Whip up a vinaigrette using the reserved bacon fat, vinegar, olive oil and dijon. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Toss the spinach with the vinaigrette, and then garnish it with the cooked bacon, crumbled feta cheese and some slivers of pickled red onion.

This recipe gives you way more of the pickled red onion than you need to use in the salad. It’s been really tasty to sneak into other salads, and sandwiches as well. The difference a quick pickle can make, yum! Just store what’s left of your pickled red onions in a jar in the fridge.

Normally, I’m a stickler for a salad having good toothsome crunch, and spinach isn’t really the green to use for that. Still, this salad brings together smoky, sour, sweet, salty, and briny flavors perfect for an (almost) summer day.

Mr says that the pickled red onions go really well with the vinaigrette.

This time last year: Sour Cream Ice Cream

And the year before: Roasted Butternut Squash

I was a very lucky girl recently, and received a gift of fresh goose breasts from one of Mr’s friends from work. I have been jealous of people like Beth of Rhubarb and Venison for having hunters in their households and new and exciting cuts of meat to work with in their kitchens. Mr has plans for taking up hunting, but has not come to that point yet. Marc gave me a chance to have a taste of things to come when Mr starts up. Frankly, I’m excited. Thank you to Marc, for graciously sharing his goose; and to Joe, for showing me the recipe.

I had never worked with or partaken of goose before, and for those of you who may not have had it yet either, a goose breast is much like a duck breast. Duck and goose are both water fowl so the breast meat is dark and there is a layer of fat between it and the skin. I hear that goose fat makes for fabulous roasted potatoes, which I hope I have the opportunity to make in the future. Working with the breast, I made these:

Cajun Stuffed Goose

(recipe adapted from Duck Poppers)

1/3 Cup olive oil

1/3 Cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 goose breasts

4 ounces cream cheese

1/2 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/2 a small onion, cut into thin half moons

1/2 a jalapeño, sliced thin

4 slices of bacon, cut into halves

Directions

Make the marinade for the goose by combining the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic powder and black pepper. Put the goose breasts into the marinade and set aside. In a bowl, combine the cream cheese with the second set of seasonings (paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, salt and pepper), mixing to distribute the seasonings through the cream cheese. Remove the goose breasts from the marinade and pound to ~1/4 inch thickness, and cut each pounded breast into four equal pieces. Working one piece at a time, lay the breast flat and place a spoonful of the Cajun cream cheese and a few half moons of onion and a slice of jalapeno. Roll the goose breast around the filling and secure by wrapping the whole thing with a half slice of bacon. Bake in a 375° oven for around 25 minutes. The goose’s juices should run clear and the bacon should crisp.

This dish is quite rich, so one or two of the stuffed pieces of goose should suffice per person. I must say that my first time tasting goose was quite pleasant. The goose itself is quite similar to chicken in texture, but much gamier in flavor. Though we didn’t have any in the house, I imagine it would have done quite well with a rich red wine. The spices from the Cajun cream cheese go together with the goose quite nicely, and crispy exterior from the bacon adds good texture as well. If you haven’t tried goose before, maybe you should give it a whirl.

Mr says: these rich and creamy meat poppers would make a good party snack, and that the addition of bacon to the goose was a wise one, because bacon makes everything a little better.

This time last year: Baked Brie with Cranberry and Orange