Creamed Onions with Bacon and Chives
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Ingredients
- 100 or so pearl onions, unpeeled (from 3 10-ounce bags)
- 2 1/2 ounces bacon (applewood-smoked is suggested), cut into a small dice
- 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons sherry
- 1/2 bunch chives, cut into 1/2-inch segments
- Kosher salt, to taste (1 teaspoon of Diamond Kosher salt suggested)
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Preparation
Chef’s notes
Because this is a Thomas Keller recipe, it originally called for 80 tiny onions, you know, so you can count them one by one. Because this Thomas Keller recipe has been adapted by Smitten Kitchen, I will tell you that 3 of those 10-ounce bags you can buy the fresh pearl onions in yielded 102 onions, and so I scaled the recipe accordingly below, to 125 percent, not because I enjoyed peeling tiny onions so much that I wanted to throw in 22 extra but because I knew the remaining onions would go otherwise unused, and that seemed wrong. I didn’t scale up the nutmeg or sherry, however, because I felt they were strong enough.
Remember how I went on and on about the cartouche up there? Forget it. Skip it. It slowed things down too much. While waiting for the cream to reduce by half, the onions overcooked, some fell apart, and deposited too much water in the cream. I recommend below cooking them with a lid slightly ajar and when the onions are getting there, about 90 percent cooked through, remove the lid and reduce the cream by half. Plus, you won’t have to make French origami.
[Want to use frozen, already peeled onions instead? I list some potential sources in the post.]