French Onion Tart

To me, there is no savoury kitchen aroma more inviting than that of onions being reduced. They're rich, sweet, gooey and golden. This Onion Tart leaves them pretty much unadulterated, protected only by a hard, crunchy case of pastry and resting on a cushion of slightly peppered egg. Delicious.


Pastry Case:
The pastry for this recipe is the standard oaty one I use for tarts and quiches. It can be found under a separate post, funnily enough called 'Oat Pastry'. For this particular recipe, I suggest using sesame seeds (rather than poppy seeds), for no reason other than that's the way I like it. Have a go and see.

Onion:
Chop 4 onions into rings and let them reduce on a low heat in olive oil for 15 minutes on the hob. Add 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar and 1 tbsp of soy sauce, mix together and cook at same low heat for another 5 minutes until any liquid remaining is like a thick sauce.

Egg Mixture:
Lightly whisk

• 4 eggs
• 100g goats/soya milk or yoghurt
• salt and pepper to taste
• a few drops of tabasco (optional)

Baking:
Reduce oven to 150 degrees and assemble the tarts: put the onions evenly across the cooled pastry base, cover with the egg mixture, and top off with a dash of nutmeg. Bake for 30-40 minutes (less for smaller pans) until the egg sets and then set on a rack to cool, before turning out and eating. Best served with a big juicy salad.

How to Cook for Allergies, cooking demo

Last night I attended a cooking demonstration called 'How to Cook for Allergies' by Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne who has recently published a book of the same name. It was held at NW Circus Place branch of Herbie of Edinburgh, a local company dedicated to the slow food movement.

Lucinda's passion for perfecting delicious alternatives for people with allergies was a real inspiration and it proved a really enjoyable evening.

Trained at the Leith School of Food and Wine in London, her demonstration was educational, accessible and most importantly useful. She took the time to explain how certain ingredients behave in different circumstances, giving a much needed reason to the amateur kitchen-user as to why a gluten-free cake might need 5 types of flours. It finally gave me extremely good reason to buy the rather irritatingly long list of flours often listed in recipes, and know that it will be money well-spent and storage space well-used.

Lucinda's can-do attitude was galvanising. Rather than being intimidated by a chef who knew everything and used fancy techniques too tricky for the general public, her focus was to teach the basics and show how easy it is to get started. Her book really details how to use variations to the best advantage. I may be a further £16.99 out of pocket, but now I'm fully referenced up and ready to get started.

To top it all off, the evening was evenly sprinkled with tasters of all the recipes covered. And they were out of this world. These simple recipes and techniques have ridiculously high pay-off. I ate the tastiest slice of Victoria Sponge I have ever eaten, even including those held in the category of Childhood Memory. I had some Tarte au Citron which knocked my socks off. The bread was easy to make (no kneading required), light in the middle, just the right kind of chewy on the outside and not in the slightest bit grainy. Washed down with a couple of glasses of white wine, the £12 ticket was definitely money well spent.

If you're interested, Lucinda will be giving 3 more demonstrations in the near future at The Edinburgh School of Food and Wine (Dairy-free 10 Aug, Egg-free 17 Aug, Gluten-free 14 Sept). Details on Lucinda's website (http://www.lucindabrucegardyne.com/) and on ESFW's (http://www.esfw.com/).

'a pawful of nuts'

Firstly, it is an expression coined by my Mum, and now very much part of the family lexicon. And the act of enjoying 'a pawful of nuts' is happily administered I would guess at least every other day in my Mum and Dad's house, as has been the case for many years. During our school years, Mum would bring offerings of nuts, raisins and carrots on a saucer, beautifully laid out, often like the rays of the sun. A pawful has always been a glorious thing.

'A pawful of nuts' however is also a healthy snack. Nuts when eaten raw and unsalted provide a source of plant protein. Many nuts are also rich in the right kinds of fats (unsaturated and containing omega 3).

Nuts are however high in calories and quickly make up your daily requirements for fat and protein. No matter how tempting it is, the key phrase is 'a pawful of nuts' and is not the same as 'the energetic pawfulling of many nuts'. The Harvard School for Public Health suggests a daily serving of 1 ounce (25g) of nuts. At approximately 185 calories per ounce, this serving should replace other fatty snacks and/or animal protein, rather to be seen as an additional supplement
(http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/nuts-for-the-heart/index.html).

But how many nuts is 25 grams approximately? I decided to conduct a home weigh-in exercise (admittedly my weighing scales are not digital, but then again this is an approximation):

25g equals the following amounts of nuts and seeds:

• 22 almonds (low GI)
• 7 brazils
• 15 cashews
• 20 hazelnuts (low GI)
• 8 macadamia (halves)
• 12 pecans (halves)
• 30 pistachios (unshelled and unsalted)
• 10 walnuts

Seeds and pinenuts are too onerous to count, so 25g translated into rounded dessertspoonfuls=

• 1.5 dspns, pinenuts
• 2 dspns, sunflower seeds
• 2 dspns, pumpkin seeds

**You can work out what your daily minimum requirement is for protein in grams by multiplying your weight in pounds by .36. If you weigh 140lbs (63kg or 10 stone), your requirement would be a mere 50g. That means one Harvard-approved one serving of nuts is half your daily protein requirement. A bit of a shock, but true.