Express Yourself

So yes, the oven. It’s broken.

Well, not totally broken. I mean, it still gets hot. It’s just abut 75 degrees slow, that’s all. I bought one of those little oven thermometers, which makes the oven usable, just highly annoying. My eyes are already tired from squinting in to see the thermometer, where I’ve positioned it in front of the oven’s light.

I called the Amana dealer yesterday. “I’m sorry,” said the woman at the Customer Experience Center.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s called the Experience Center, as opposed to the Service Center. I didn’t get any service. I just got an apology. Too bad so sad, honey, with a nice Midwestern accent.

But see, yesterday, I needed that oven. I pulled six small onions out of our garden, and though I’m sure they’d have cured up nicely and waited patiently for later in the fall, when they could be diced up anonymously and secreted into some soup, I wanted to taste them unfettered. Onions as themselves.

Onions and silk don’t have much in common, but if you roast onions slowly, at first, allowing them to soften all the way to the center, then brown them at a higher temperature and hit them with a little apple cider vinegar, their sections slide across each other like an old Madonna video.

Really. Don’t peg me as a huge fan, but when I popped one into my mouth, half dropping it along the way because it was so soft, and that Express Yourself video came to mind, out of nowhere. That scene at the end where she’s rolling around on the sheets? The onions did that. In my mouth.

These are onions at their sexiest. These are onions expressing themselves.

We ate half the batch standing up, deciding what to make for dinner, and scattered the other half under the cheese on a pizza. Next year, I’ll save them for a roasted vegetable salad – since they’re sweet, acidic, and a bit oily, all at once, I’d be willing to bet they’d blend up into a superb pure onion vinaigrette. Or maybe I’ll spread them on great walnut bread, and top with bleu cheese. . . In any case, next year, I’ll be planting more onions.

Simple Roasted Onions with Cider Vinegar (PDF)

TIME: 10 minutes active time
MAKES: 4 servings

4 teaspoons olive oil, separated
1 pound small onions (about 6 or 8 the size of limes)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Drizzle two teaspoons of the olive oil across the bottom of an ovenproof dish, and turn the pan to coat. Trim the dry tips and root hairs off the onions, slice them in half through the ends, and peel. Place the onions in the pan, cut side down. Drizzle with the remaining 2 teaspoons oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast for 1 hour in the center of the oven.

Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees. Roast for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the onions are deep brown. Add the vinegar, and shake the pan gently to release the onions from the pan, if they’ve started to stick. (Watch your nose!) Using a small spatula, carefully turn the onions over, so the browned cut sides are up, and roast another 5 to 10 minutes, until the vinegar has reduced almost completely. Serve warm or at room temperature.