Onion Tart Tatin, Onion Soup, Baked Camembert and Rhubarb Pavlova

I had planned to make Neven Maguire's Onion Tart Tatin from his book Food from the Sun last Friday night specially for a friend of mine, but then I had to work so we had to postpone. The puff pastry was already defrosted in the fridge so today I thought I'd do a practice run so as to be absolutely perfect when I do finally get to cook for her. The ingredients are pretty basic (puff pastry, shallots, butter, stock, sugar and balsamic) but the technique is a bit involved, to be honest. You must saute the shallots in butter for a good fifteen minutes, and then simmer them in stock before removing them and drying them with kitchen paper. Then you need to return them to an oven-proof frying pan and caramelise them with sugar and balsamic. Cover this lot with a puff pastry disc, tucking in the sweet shallots around the edges and then baking for half an hour in a medium oven.
However, the return on all this saucepan juggling is substantial - a sweet, sticky onion tart with pleasingly chewy edges. A warning folks... before turning out this treat, let the tart rest for ten minutes - this should reduce (but not remove) the likelihood of a permanent maiming with scalding hot buttery juices.

We ate the tart warm as an accompaniment to Jamie Oliver's English Onion Soup, in a continuing Sunday afternoon celebration of the humble onion, though I confess I omitted the sage, as I am not keen. This recipe prescribes gentle sweating of red and white onions, shallots and leeks with garlic in butter for almost an hour, then adding stock and generous seasoning. The soup is sweet and silky, really comforting and wholesome. The soup was a hit but we all found that a higher ratio of soupy stock to onions would have been preferable.

The crouton is just toasted bread with melted cheddar cheese. I wish I had the traditional pot-bellied soup tureens for my onion soup, but these will have to do for now for. I halved this recipe as we were just three for lunch today, and I have lots left for lunch tomorrow.

We went all out today with a cheese course, since the main course was light (leave me to delusions, I'm happier this way...). I baked a whole Camembert in its box without adornment, and in to it we dipped baguette, apple and baby potatoes. Simple but delicious, in future I think I'll just have this every day and hope I'm immune to heart disease...


Mini-pavlovas with rhubarb were the only real bum note of the afternoon, the rhubarb being just too eye-wateringly sour to stand up to anything, really. The photo doesn't portray it very well, but the little pav is surrounded by some of the pink poaching liquor in which the rhubarb was cooked. This turned out to be somewhat superfluous, indeed merely adding to the overall wake-me-up-and-slap-me-in-the-face sourness of this dessert. I don't feel too bad though, I'd wanted to try this recipe from the Irish Farmers Market Cookbook for ages, and I utilised my surplus egg whites and rhubarb - all is well in my thrifty galley.