I’m more than a little addicted to caramelized onions – the way long strips relax into sweet softness, with just a little bit of butteriness and none of the butter. Optional balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, or maple syrup. Basically I could a pound of onions this way. Probably not a good idea, but I’ve also probably had worse ideas food-wise.
But caramelized onions take a lot of patience. You have to stand over a skillet for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, to let the onions darken and then to stir in the slight char. You don’t want them to blacken, but they need to turn golden brown throughout. It’s the perfect balance of allowing the onions to release their juices slowly and cook in them. Of course, you can cheat and use a ton of butter or oil to ensure the onions don’t burn (in this case you can go read a book while they cook), but if you want to keep it light you need to be more vigilant. Book-learning is for the less well-fed, apparently.
But the magic of sous vide cooking is that you don’t need to add so much oil, and you can’t add too much liquid. Sous Vide means “under vacuum” and I’ve been testing the at-home version of this machine that looks like a breadmaker. You vacuum-seal foods in food-grade plastic bags and stick the bags in a water bath at a very precise temperature for (generally) a long time. It’s slow-cooking for the science geek, or for the person who wants to get it right every time. Sure, you can bake bread by hand, but with a bread machine, anyone can bake bread. Ask my dad. He’s a bread machine pro. But I doubt he’s kneaded a loaf in his entire life.
Same thing with the microwave. My brother is a microwave genius, but if you could microwave more full-size pizzas he’d probably use his oven less. This sounds mean, so let me involve myself in this comparison to make it fairer: I have a fry cutter. It’s a machine than cuts a potato into fries for you. Why do I need this when I have a chef’s knife? Because it’s easy and it’s fool proof. As long as I don’t want skinny fries. But who wants skinny fries anyway? I also had a bread maker once. I have two ice cream makers, neither of which involves old-school salted ice churning like in the kid-friendly ice cream maker I wanted when I was a kid (I thnk it came from the same company as the easy bake oven).
So my point is that newer, cooler, more foolproof kitchen gadgets are great, though often ridiculous. And like the microwave, they can start off expensive and outer space-y, and end up mainstream.
Now I’m not going to sell you on a sous vide machine by talking about caramelizing onions, but I am going to tell you that this was a big selling point for me. I chopped about 5 onions and tossed them in a bag, vacuum-sealed them, and cooked them for 4 hours at 185 F. Easiest caramelized onions I ever made. Except they didn’t caramelize – they didn’t brown. There’s no Maillard (browning) reaction in bags. But they taste great. And I could have left them for 12 hours and they would have been the same or better. Probably better. They wouldn’t get any hotter or more cooked, but they might break down into even softer mouthfuls of onion (not ideal for other foo, such as carrots, but great for onions).
And I didn’t have to stir once. These were the easiest slow-cooked onions I ever made. I guess I should just call them slow-cooked.
So however you cook your caramelized/slow-cooked onions, remember that there are hard ways to do things and there are easy ways. The same goes for the tart and for the peppers in this recipe. Sure, you can make a different kind of pancake, or a leavened bread that requires kneading. And you can roast the peppers, a process that involves not burning them, just charring the skins and 30 minutes of patience while they sweat in a paper bag. OR, you can eat the delicious peppers raw (Mine are from Lufa Farms Fresh Basket, so it seems a sin to cook them when they’re that good fresh anyway), and make a quick batter of chickpea flour, water and salt. Easiest tart/pancake ever. Use lots of oil so it doesn’t stick to the pan (or a non-stick pan…though I’ll never give up my cast-iron), and luxuriate in creamy onions that won’t leave you with a leftover onion taste in your mouth for two days.
Chickpea Tarts with Sous Vide Caramelized Onions and Red Peppers
1 3/4 cups chickpea flour (toasted chickpea flour is even better)
2 cups water
2 egg whites
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
vegetable oil for cooking (or other high heat oil such as sunflower oil)
1 1/2 pounds onions, sliced (as many as you want, really, or as many as will fit in each large bag)
1/4 tsp salt
1 pepper (red, green, orange, yellow, or mix), sliced or diced (I like them raw and crunchy, so chop them whatever size of pepper you like to munch)
For stove-top caramelized onions, go to my past recipe here.
Preheat sous vide machine to 184 F. Don’t fill it too high if you have a lot of bags to add – maybe only 25 cups of water instead of 32…).
Wait a ridiculously long time (about 45 minutes) for the machine to preheat. Meanwhile, place sliced onions in food grade plastic bag. Vacuum-seal. When the sous vide machine is preheated, place bags in rack and place rack in machine so onion bags are completely submerged in the water. Set timer for 2 hours, or 4 hours, or however long until you want to eat. The longer the better. 2 hours and they still might be a tiny bit crunchy.
Make the socca batter by combining the chickpea flour, water, olive oil, 3/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper in a medium bowl. Mix well to get the lumps out (a whisk is a good choice). Then, in a second bowl beat the egg whites to soft peaks (think “rolling plains”, not “pointy peaks”)
2. Fold the egg whites into the batter. Folding is hard. I kind of hate when a recipe says that, but it’s a technique you’ll need to learn if you want to eat things that are light and fluffy. So here you go:
Brush a medium frying pan with the vegetable oil (or other high-heat oil) and put it on high heat for 2 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-high and pour in 1/4 of the pancake batter. When air bubbles appear (after 2 minutes) carefully flip the pancake over. It’ll probably stick and you’ll probably swear at me, but it’s the recipe’s fault. That’s why a non-stick skillet is so nice.
Cook on the second side for 1 minute, then transfer to a plate and cover to keep warm. Repeat pancake making 3 more times, until the batter is used up.
To assemble, cut open the sous vide onion bags and completely smother the pancakes with onions.Then place slices of red, green, or multi-coloured peppers on top. Optionally place on a parchment or aluminium-lined baking sheet and broil on high for 3-5 minutes, or until a little browned on top.
Smothered sous-vide onions and red pepper chickpea tarts
You can serve these with crème fraiche, cashew cream, or thick plain yogurt on the side (or not). They’re a perfect appetizer, cut into pizza-like slices, or next time make them smaller like actual pancakes and serve them as individual pancakes. Or top with a sprinkle of parsley, thyme, oregano, or a mystery herb from your Lufa Farms Fresh Basket.
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