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

Today is my little brother’s birthday!

(He is little only in the respect that I had the luck to be older than him. He’s 2 1/2 years younger than me but in my memory has always been at least my size, if not taller.)

Happy birthday Nolan!

The thing about brothers, little or otherwise, is they are the peer who has been at your side for the longest. They know you in ways that it is hard for other people to know you, because your lives have been steeped in each other’s pretty much from the beginning.

Like Baz Luhrmann once said, “Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future… the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.”

Though I don’t know from personal experience, I’m sure it’s very much the same with sisters.

So, for the boy who would don rubber boots alongside me to muck about in the thawed ditches every spring, and tie yarn harnesses on his toys so we could have them mountain climb up book shelves, the man who enjoys an extremely silly board game as much as I do: Happy birthday. I love you to bits!

Stuffing Muffins

(adapted from Inspired Magazine)

1 loaf stale bread of choice (or equivalence in other bread product, I used some buns)

1/2 Cup pine nuts

6 slices of bacon

1 large onion

200 grams cremini mushrooms

2 tsp fresh thyme

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 Cups chicken broth

Directions

• Tear up the loaf of bread into bite sized pieces. You can cut it into cubes, but tearing up the bread leaves crags and crannies that  give the stuffing extra texture.
• Toast the pine nuts in a pan over medium heat until they get fragrant. Set them aside for later use.
• Set a skillet over the hob, cut the bacon into lardons, and cook them until crispy. Set aside for later.
• Slice and dice your mushrooms and onion, respectively. Add them into the skillet that was used to crisp the bacon, and cook until the onions are translucent and a lot of the moisture from the mushrooms has evaporated. Remove from heat.
• In a large bowl, mix together the torn bread pieces with the pine nuts, bacon, onion, and mushrooms.
• In a smaller dish, whisk together the black pepper, thyme, egg and chicken broth.
• Pour the liquid slowly over the dry stuffing, tossing to moisten evenly.
•  Separate the stuffing gently into 12 balls and place in muffin cups, bake in a 350 °F oven until the tops are browned and crispy ~20-25 minutes.
• Note: if you wish to bake it in one large dish, rather than muffin cups, extend time to ~30-35 minutes.
• Serve with the rest of the meal, and enjoy slathered in gravy if possible.

Eep!

I wrote about making naan, and promised I would tell you all about the incredible delectable thing I did with it… and then I went and talked about other things and forgot all about that.

I’m sorry.

How about topping naan with caramelized onion, thinly sliced pears, a few leaves of thyme, and some glorious brie? Those are four of my favorite things!

And hopefully this awesome flatbread will be one of your favorite things too!

Caramelized Onion, Pear & Brie Flatbread

(Recipe adapted from Inspired magazine)

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 onion, sliced thinly (a perfect time to get out your mandolin if you have one!)

1 Tbsp thyme leaves

2 or 3 pieces of naan (depending on size)

salt and pepper

1 pear, cored and sliced into thin rounds (I chose Bosc for density, but feel free to mix it up)

100 grams brie, cut into slices

Directions

• Cook the onion slices in the olive oil over medium heat until gloriously caramelized.
• Spread the onions in a thin layer over your pieces of naan.

• Arrange the sliced pear over top of the onion, and then season gently with salt and pepper.

• Lay the brie on top, and then sprinkle with the thyme leaves.

• Bake in a 400° F oven until the cheese is melted and the bottom of the naan is browned and crisp (~10 minutes).
• Allow to cool slightly, and then slice into wedges.
• Devour!

This was so very ridiculously tasty. When I said devour I really did mean it! It was sweet and savory, unctuous and gooey and downright good. I may be slightly biased though, because it really does bring together a number of my favorite flavors. Both Mr and I found it a little greasy between the onions and the brie, which is why I cut down the oil in the recipe that is used to caramelize the onions, but the recipe may need a little more tinkering with in order to mitigate it further.

My next plan of action: replace the caramelized onions with caramelized onion marmalade. It might make the flatbread too sweet, though. Only experimentation will tell.

The flatbread would be a lovely addition to a party spread, and an easy addition too, because it assembles in a few pieces and then gets cut up to serve a crowd (or a few voracious people). This route is much less fussy than making a whole tray of individual sized nibbles.

This time last year: Mushroom Cranberry Pilaf

And the year before: Pear Upside Down Brownie