What's for Dinner, Julia? Oignons Farcis Au Riz

How is your French?

Could you tell that was Onions Stuffed with Rice, Cheese and Herbs?

Good for you!  I knew I was blogging to the gifted class!

These.  Are yummy.  I would do these again.  Especially for a pretty cheap, easy vegetable that looks kinda fancy.  And chances are you have everything on hand already.  No special ingredients here, plus there is lots of room for substitutions if you need.  Out of Parm?  No worries.  Substitute whatever cheese you have on hand.  Out of one of the herbs?  Use thyme or whatever you have on hand.  Out of beef stock?  No problem - you can always use chicken or vegetable stock or even water, but add a clove or two of garlic to boost up the flavor a bit.

Serve these on a Monday night to your neighborhood association committee members, and they will ask with delightful anticipation, "Ooo!  What is that?!"

Once they have added their honey mustard pretzel chicken and salad to the plate, the stuffed onion adds a rather special yet rustic, gourmet feel to the overall presentation.

And they aren't hard at all!  The most difficult part is hollowing out the onions.  Julia says to use a grapefruit knife, and I'm sure she is right, but I don't have a grapefruit knife.

Nor do I have a grapefruit spoon.

Please note.  I have a cranberry spoon, but I do not have a grapefruit spoon.

In case you wondered about my values, I clearly value and serve cranberries more than grapefruit.

I'm sure this explains a lot to some food psychologist somewhere, but I'm not yet sure what.

So back to the hollowing out of the onions.  You begin by removing the root and stem and peel of the onion.

Note:  keep the things on the left, pitch the things on the right.

Then you cut a cone from the middle with a sharp paring knife - even if you have a grapefruit knife.  

Isn't that a cute onion cone at the top?  I think so.  Note: keep the cone.  You will use it.

Now you take your grapefruit knife that you don't have, or your grapefruit spoon that you don't have or your regular spoon that you do have (your cranberry spoon won't help you here) and dig out that cute little middle stem and the middle of the onion, leaving the bottom and sides intact.

That is IF you can leave the bottom intact.  Oops!  But we're all friends here so I can show you my oopses.  (Yes, that is a word, I'm sure of it.)

Julia tells us to boil these onion cups for about 10 - 15 minutes.  I boiled the oops onion a bit less, since it had more "cup" and less "sides" than the others.

And once you take the onions out and let them drain, you add about 1/3 cup of rice to the boiling water and let it partially cook - about 15 minutes - and drain the rice, too.

Meanwhile, we saute the onion innards in butter and add some Parmesan cheese, cream, bread crumbs (I used Panko) parsley, oregano, basil, sage.  Add the rice when it is done and correct the seasoning.

Then you stuff this yummy goodness into your onion cups, ready to bake for a while.

Drizzle the onions with a little olive oil or butter and then add some white wine and beef stock to the dish to then bake at 375 for about 1 to 1-1/4 hours, basting every 10 - 15 minutes or so.  I half baked them on Sunday evening and then finished them up on Monday.  

They smell WONDERFUL when they are baking!  B came into the kitchen and asked what she smelled.  She wondered if they were a different kind of bread, and that came partly from the yeasty wine aromas when the oven door was open for basting.  

And I think they taste really good, too!  The filling is the best part, no doubt, but the onions are sweet and tender.  See?

I have some leftover stuffing that I put in a separate ramekin that I will bake for another dinner this week.  I am looking forward to that, too!

If you are interested in the honey mustard pretzel chicken, I essentially followed this recipe from blogger,

Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice.  This was tender and juicy and quite tasty as well without being too salty.  

Not bad for a Monday night dinner!  Thanks again, Julia!