Sweet and sour braised pearl or boiling onions flavored with vinegar and honey.
A perfect holiday side dish from Hank Shaw. Enjoy! ~Elise
This is a lovely way to eat smaller onions. I learned this recipe from Italian cookbooks, where they call it onions agrodolce, but the concept of sweet-and-sour onions is pretty widespread.
Basically you cook the onions part way either by roasting or boiling – we boil them here – and then finish them off in a pan with oil (or butter) something sweet (in this case honey) and something sharp, usually vinegar.
You can totally play with flavors. Switch up oils and fats – walnut oil, duck fat, sesame oil, etc – and sweeteners (honey, brown sugar, agave nectar, and so on) and you will get all sorts of different results. All are good.
Sweet and Sour Onions Recipe
- Prep time: 20 minutes
- Cook time: 15 minutes
- Yield: Serves 4
These onions are just as tasty at room temperature as they are hot.
Ingredients
- 1 to 1 1/2 pounds boiling or pearl onions
- Salt
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or butter
- 3 tablespoons cider, malt or white wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon honey
Method
1 Peel the onions: The hardest part about this recipe is peeling the onions. If you are using pearl or small cipollini onions, blanch them in boiling water for a minute or so and then plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking. Slice off the root and stem ends, and the papery skin should slip right off.
If you are using the larger boiling onions, as we did here, just slice the stem end off the onion and peel as you would a normal onion.
2 Boil the onions: Bring a pot of salty water to a boil, and boil your onions for 4-10 minutes, or until they are tender. Smaller onions will need less time. You want them al dente, not soft, because they will cook a bit more in the frying pan. Drain the onions well and set aside.
3 Fry the onions: Get a frying pan hot over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. Let the olive oil get hot for a minute or two and add the onions. They will spit a little because they are full of moisture. Let them sizzle until you get some browning on a couple sides of the onion, about 4-5 minutes.
4 Add honey and vinegar mixture to pan: Meanwhile, mix the honey and vinegar vigorously until the honey dissolves. Add it to the frying pan. It will spit and sizzle violently. Turn the onions to coat with the mixture and turn the heat down to medium. Sprinkle salt over everything.
5 Boil down to a syrup: Let the vinegar-honey mixture boil down to a thick syrup. Turn the onions often to coat evenly.
Serve hot or at room temperature, with a little sprinkling of a fancy salt like fleur de sel, if you have some.
Links:
Sweet and Sour Cipollini – from Smitten Kitchen
Ramps or Scallions Agrodolce – from Hunter Angler Gardener Cook
