Onion Confit

[Athenaeus]

here comes my recipe in detail:

these are 2 pound of onions ( 1000 gram)

peeled

snip.....

Although it's almost a year since this recipe has been posted allow me to congratulate you. Searching for an onion chutney, last week, I came up with this recipe. I tried it and it was a great success. It's easy, quick, tasty and very sexy.

Just a note though I believe that it's an onion chutney and not an onion confit.

~A~

Edited January 29, 2005 by Athenaeus (log)

[Alex]

I tried a batch last weekend. (Sorry, no pics.) I used a relatively new Rival Crock-Pot, high heat all the way, stirred occasionally, uncovered after ~6 hrs to let liquid evaporate, then covered again for another 4 hrs. Ingredients = 2# yellow onions, ~1T each olive oil and butter (unsalted Plugra), 2 bay leaves, ~1t each dried thyme, sugar, and Morton's kosher salt; I added a couple of teaspoons of Fini balsamic vinegar for the last hour of cooking. The confit (or whatever) was pretty decent, close to my best pan-made one. It made four generous servings. I would have preferred another couple of hours in the pot (i.e., softer and darker onions), but the entrée (smoked flank steak) awaited.

[fifi]

Shalamese - It isn't about temperature, itis about time.  The long cooking time allows the flavors to develop and blend over the long haul.  You can cook a stew in half an hour, or you can cook it all day, which one will taste better?

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I agree that sublime confit takes many hours to make but not all that time is used productively. I feel that the first few hours of gentle simmering until the onion water is almost completely gone does nothing for the confit and merely allows volatile flavour molecules to waft off and disappear forever. I'm advocating a relatively high simmer at the start until the onions start to wilt and dry followed by long, slow heat to let the delicate Maillard reactions to take place.

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I think that is what most of us are doing. You start out in the crock pot on high, then switch to low for the long haul.

I will repeat what I reported up-thread about sweetness. For my last batch I used some really strong white onions and found the final product unpleasantly sweet. I know that using the word "unpleasant" and "sweet" in the same sentence sounds strange but I expect my onion confit to be savory. I am going to try lovebenton0's approach next, use a mix of red, yellow and white onions. Or, at least, I will go back to the all yellow onion approach.

[Athenaeus]

I agree that sublime confit takes many hours to make but not all that time is used productively.

I have tried both ways and since in my kitchen I have a fireplace as well, I even used the method women in Greece used decades ago in making confits. Honestly I didn't find any difference-- of course the batch made on the fire had an elegant aftertaste of wood. I believe that we are conditioned to believe that whatever is slowly cooked is necessarily better. I don't think that this applies to all the cases.

To return to our tasty subject I believe that what makes schneich's recipe a hit is the fact that in an hour you have what others have in 18h and since gas is not used in Greek households saving 17 h of electricity really matters.

Regading "strong flavored" onions, a nice trick to get rid of the extra "heat" is to soak them for a couple of min in salted water. :)

~Athenaeus~

Edited January 30, 2005 by Athenaeus (log)

[amccomb]

I just caught this thread after all of this time and have decided to make some onion confit this weekend. I had planned on going the simple route with onions, butter, olive oil, salt, and pepper, since I don't have demi-glace here and wanted to keep my flavor options open, but I've noticed a couple of folks were disappointed in the results.

I have two things I could do to liven things up a bit. I could use duck fat, which I have seen mentioned, but haven't seen any one post the results of using duck fat, especially compared to the "original".

Another idea is to use some green apple jelly I made last fall. I noticed at one point, someone mentioned that it may be the gelatin in the demi-glace that adds to the texture of the confit, and someone else thought pectin might be a decent substitute. Well, the apple jelly is high pectin, so I'm wondering how it would work as a sub.

Any thoughts?

[Marlene]

The last time I made onion confit, a few weeks ago, I didn't use any demi glace. I did slip in a cube of concentrated beef stock though. I'm not quite sure what apple jelly would do.

[andiesenji]

I often use duck fat in my onion confit. A few months ago I made a batch of onion confit and included a preserved lemon.

The lemon flavor was not overwhelming but contributed a sweet/tart/salty tang to the complex flavor of the onions.

I have made marmalade from onion confit with various jams and jellies, processed them as I would any canned item and note that they seem to improve with age (several months).

I don't make homemade apple jelly very often but buy it in half-gallon containers because I use it in making large batches of homemade mustard.

(I use the apple or other jelly or marmalade in the mustard because I have friends who are allergic to certain things in honey and since they are usual recipients of the mustard, I don't want to make them ill.)

Last December I made a batch of onion confit with red onions and included shallots, for about 1/4 of the entire volume, and made it up into marmalade for Christmas gifts. For some reason, I failed to keep a jar for myself but the friends who got it have all raved about it and a few have returned the jars, just in case I make another batch soon.

I made a large batch of orange/grapefruit/lemon jelly last fall, from the fruit that remained after making candied peel.

I plan on using that to make onion/garlic marmalade next week.

I want to add that I had a rather lengthy conversation with a local chef, who makes an onion confit for his restaurant service. He takes all the onion trimmings, skin, etc., and simmers them in just enough water to cover until it is a beautiful amber color. He reduces this and adds it to the confit about half-way through the cooking and swears it adds something to the final product.

I have intended to try this but am usually making stock at the same time that I do the confit and, of course, the onion trimmings go into the stock.

I thought I would mention it just in case anyone else wants to try this.

Edited March 19, 2005 by andiesenji (log)

[fifi]

. . . . .

I want to add that I had a rather lengthy conversation with a local chef, who makes an onion confit for his restaurant service.  He takes all the onion trimmings, skin, etc., and simmers them in just enough water to cover until it is a beautiful amber color.  He reduces this and adds it to the confit about half-way through the cooking and swears it adds something to the final product.

I have intended to try this but am usually making stock at the same time that I do the confit and, of course, the onion trimmings go into the stock. 

I thought I would mention it just in case anyone else wants to try this.

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I will surely try this. I am usually making confit on its own, not in conjunction with stock, so I should have plenty of onion trimmings to play with. What an interesting idea. I also want to try the combination with the shallots. I love shallots.

On further thought, I will probably give that reduction a taste test and see what else it could be used for. There may be gold in them thar trimmings.

[andiesenji]

I love shallots too. I just brought in a bunch from the garden.

The onions and shallots have been growing right through the winter, in spite of quite a few nights of well-below freezing temps.

If it stops raining for a few minutes I will go out and take a picture...

Lots of green showing in the kitchen/herb garden. Even the strawberries are blooming.

One sad note, no apricots this year. We had a hard freeze just as the tree was covered with blooms, much too early, because of an unseasonal few days of high temps. All blooms dropped, no fruit set.

[amccomb]

Well, I decided to go with sherry, butter, and duck fat. It' s been going in the crockpot for about 12 hours now. It smells great, but I haven't tasted it yet.

Do you season it with salt and pepper? Or just go with the onion flavor?

[andiesenji]

I add a little salt near the end of cooking because as the total reduces, the salt will concentrate and the end result will be far too salty. This is the same as not salting stock until near the end.

[Shalmanese]

Since confit doesn't reduce nearly as much as stock, I lightly salt at the beginning. I find that the salt seems to be more evenly integrated this way.

[Marlene]

Inever add salt at the beginning of my confit. You can add a little at the end if you want. Don't forget, confit will take 18 - 24 hours to produce,depending on what you are using for equipment.

Good luck!

[Chufi]

Today I accidentally made a great dish with onion confit.

I had some in my fridge (defrosted by accident, because the label said it was blackberry sauce ).

I made a big pot of carrot and potato soup today. After pressing it through a sieve, I was left with a pan of smooth soup and a lot of carrot debris. The carrot mush looked somehow to good to throw out.

So, I mixed in the confit, some parmesan, an egg, some flower, salt & pepper and parsley. Fried in olive oil and here they are: carrot-onionconfit cakes! And they were wonderful!

[fifi]

Chufi, that is about the most inspired use of onion confit on this entire (eGads, 17 pages!) thread on onion confit. Now I am thinking of doing something similar with potatoes. I found a small jar in the fridge and it seems to still be good.

[Chufi]

Oh yes, potaotes would be great too. My carrot mix was pretty tasteless after it had given all its flavor to the soup, the confit was really the star of the cake so anything starchy would work well I think.

btw i served them with creme fraiche with some chipotle in adobo stirred into it, to cut the sweetness, mmm..

[Genny]

OK, I read thru pages 1-14 and then just had to skip to p.17. Wow, so much on onion confit! I'm inspired to make this this weekend and have decided to use it as an appetizer for my huband's graduation party next weekend. I was thinking that this could actually be considered something like a 'decomposed' french onion soup? I plan on toasting baguette rounds, smearing with some grainy french mustard, topping with beefy onion confit and a bit of guyere and then broiling to melt the cheese. Anything else I should be thinking about here?

Thanks to everyone's hard work/play with this! You all rock! This has been a wonderful learning experience! Now...to see if there is something similar on a duck confit... (rubs hands together greedily).

[Genny]

I've got my onions going...we'll see the results tomorrow!

Would it be wasteful to make this into a dip for my Ruffles?

[fifi]

. . . . .

Thanks to everyone's hard work/play with this!  You all rock!  This has been a wonderful learning experience!  Now...to see if there is something similar on a duck confit... (rubs hands together greedily).

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Ask and ye shall receive . . . Confit Duck, Step by step with photos.

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Would it be wasteful to make this into a dip for my Ruffles?

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I can't think of a way to waste onion confit. It may take a long time but you pretty much ignore it so it isn't any work at all. And, it is cheap!

I say to give your Ruffles a treat. Hey . . . It has to be better than the dried onion soup version.

[Genny]

Oh, HUGE kudos to everyone! Me likee! This is fantastic, methinks this can be added to the "Food in the Bedroom" string....

My kitchen notes: to make this more "French Onion Soup-ish" I added 1 bay leaf, 1 tsp condensed beef stock, 1 sprig thyme, a tsp. of basalmic and 2 tbs. red wine. I didn't have any sherry on hand and was afraid madiera was too sweet so that was omitted.

For the Crustini: Frech baguette sliced 1/2 inch thick spread with Grey Poupon country dijon mustard and topped with Guyere, broiled to melt the cheese. I also did one without mustard but with the mustard was definitely better with the vinegar in the background but the bread was too soft and I tasted more bread than I wanted to.

I revised and cut the bread about 1/4 inch and toasted it. The crunch was perfect but now I tasted too much mustard. Third time is a charm! Toasted baguette cut approx. 1/4 inch and just enough mustard scraped over, an uneven coating made the different bites each have a different experience. Perfect! I think the hubby will really enjoy this one!

edited to add: OH, and thanks for the Duck Confit thread!

G

Edited April 22, 2005 by Genny (log)

[reesek]

Would it be wasteful to make this into a dip for my Ruffles?

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i don't think so - i do it for every party! it's delicious

i call it "18 hour onion dip"

[Genny]

Would it be wasteful to make this into a dip for my Ruffles?

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i don't think so - i do it for every party! it's delicious

i call it "18 hour onion dip"

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MMM, do you have a recipe posted in the RecipeGullet? If not, can you share your recipe?

[percyn]

Here is my first try at Onion Confit:

5 large onions

1/2 cup olive oil

3/4 stick of butter

4 hours after cooking full crockpot on high

Then put it on low for another 18 (total = 22):

and the finished product:

along the way I borrowed some onions to make some French Onion soup (smaller crock on the right covered with a cruton and cheese)

Cheers

Percy

[little ms foodie]

I made Thomas Keller's onion confit (and garlic confit) out of Bouchon last week. He doesn't go for the dark color, calls for it to be in a saucepan over low for a few hours with nice aromatics. And you use a parchment lid.

this was turned into quiche lorraine

[emmapeel]

I just finished my first Onion Confit. Equal parts butter and EVOO, 6 onions, a 1/4 cup sugar and a little salt. Stove top for 4 hours on the barest of flames, and in the oven at 200 for 14 hours. It is a dark marmalade color and tastes fine, but there is still some liquid at the bottom. Should I cook it out on the stove top? Thanks in advance.