Onions – Southern Fusion Cooking

I’itoi Onions at Ten Days

I’itoi onions are the kind of vegetable that could make the owner of a Chia pet jealous.Brought to the desert Southwest by Jesuit missionaries around 1699 to 1700, the I’toi proved to be ideal for the type of agriculture practiced by the native Tohono O’odham peoples, known as Ak cin, which means watching for summertime monsoon rains. When rain was coming, crops such as these onions were planted, and the onions sprouted to edible size in a small number of days.

My two miniature Sonoran Deserts in a pot are a combination of well composted chicken manure with a couple of handfuls of masonry sand. Growing in containers will insure that the desert onions will have plenty of drainage when we receive one of our monsoon level rains. Having grown these before, I know it also won’t be long before these onions will be ready to be divided, and we will be in onions forever, unless we neglect them.

I’itoi onions can be used as something of a giant version of chives, by clipping just the green parts. They also can be used, Louisiana style, as a fast growing shallot. As a plant that has made it on this side of the pond for over three hundred years, it is an heirloom among heirlooms.

“Josette” Creole Shallots at One Month

The first planting of Josette shallots worked out so well I had to order another bag. All told, I will have 22 Josettes planted in four cinder block “raised beds.” I saw this idea at some gardening site on the inter webs, and had a pile of free cinder blocks lying around, and had to try it. With a little potting soil, presto, instant raised bed.

Now that Allium cepa has been divided into two large groups, bulb onions and multipliers, I am going to refer to all multipliers as shallots, in the great Gulf Coast tradition. My next multiplier purchase will be some of the Southwestern I’itoi onion, an heirloom that was brought from Spain, circa 1699.

This exercise has led me to mentally compile a list of onions, leeks, and garlic that are suitable for permaculture. In short, I buy them once, and then propagate them myself. So far I have in mind five onions, two leeks, and two garlics. When they are all in the ground I will report back.

Creole Shallot “Josette,” aka Spring Onion, White Multiplier Onion

As this plant has at least three common names, I’m going with the most provocative, and yet the most historically accurate one (if you want the whole scoop, read the long discussion from 2008 on Nola.com about the issue). Creole food expert Poppy Tooker of New Orleans believes the original ones from France were actually shallots, but that only the green parts of the plants were used, and that eventually any green onion became known as a “shallot.” Here she is–

I believe in all those original old Creole recipes, people were actually using shallot tops, because they were growing them like that out in their garden, then, later, probably buying them in whole bunches with a little oniony part on the bottom and the green onion part on the top. . .I really believe this is the truth, and why we call them shallots instead of scallions or green onions or spring onions.
Poppy Tooker

Common names of plants are really only as useful as nicknames anyway, so this debate is about as important as what your dog’s name really is–is one of our Aussies named Siegfried, or is it Ziggy? Either way, he’s still a dog.

This plant does have a provenance of sorts, as the person I bought these bulbs from wrote “I obtained a start about 1972 from an elderly Creole gentleman in Golden Meadow Louisiana.” That’s good enough for me.

I think of these scrawny things when I hear multiplier onion.

These are the common yellow multiplier, which come in various varieties. Fortunately, scientists have come to the rescue, and reclassified all onions and shallots as just Allium cepa, with different types. Now to the questions of whether or not Elephant garlic is really garlic: Hint: it isn’t. A scallion? Different species also. For now.

May Day Breakfast with New Taters, Homegrown Eggs, and Leftovers

We started off International Worker’s Day the right way, with our once every weekend Farmer’s Omelette. We had to celebrate the needs of workers to conserve every penny, so we made this partly with leftovers, although they were no ordinary leftovers. Having grown up on what we call a “dirt farm,” I know how to use a leftover.

The Base

Heaviest Skillet available

1 slice good Bacon (preferably organic)

New Taters, Precious

First, cook the slice of bacon. The real purpose of this is to render out the fat needed to fry the taters. I like to add some olive oil for extra flavor, if needed. These little gems didn’t need any. The Yukon Golds were so tender I didn’t even peel them. Naturally, I had planted them in composted chicken manure to begin with.

Fry the taters until practically done, and chop the bacon. Turn the oven on to 400 F. Time for the magic leftovers.

Leftovers

Grilled organic Onions

Grilled organic cherry Tomatoes

Chicken kabobs on Friday night, grilled over hardwood charcoal. It was all too good, and had those two left over. The Florida Maters were halved, and the onions diced. They just needed to be warmed, so I threw them in with the chopped bacon. Then came the money shot.

Eggs

Homegrown Eggs

Our chickens are getting fat and happy, and we had nine eggs on two days each last month–and we only have eight hens. Currently we are feeding about five families with our eggs. The birds will without doubt be demanding overtime feed soon.

Cook the eggs over-easy style in the oven, but without turning them over. Watch this like a chicken on lookout for a hawk, and take out while the yolk is still runny. This is more than enough to feed the two of us, plus a snack for our two dogs. They especially like the taters.

Turkey and Vegetable Soup Gumbo

I’m a little late with my Thanksgiving leftover recipe, but any fowl will do for this recipe, or even frozen leftover turkey. It’s a simpler version of a standard gumbo, as it uses already prepared soup as the base for the gumbo.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon Bacon Fat or other Oil

1 tablespoon Flour

1 pint Vegetable Soup (preferably home made, and frozen is fine)

1 cup chopped cooked Turkey or Chicken (maybe Guinea Fowl, anyone? P-trak, p-trak)

Poultry Stock

Extra Frozen Okra

Salt and Pepper

Quick and dirty here. The only thing that requires a good deal of attention is the roux, which should be a dark brown roux, so start with the oil/fat flour combo, and stir constantly. Once that is to the as you like it stage, add the soup and the turkey. Cook until it begins to simmer, and gauge how much stock you want, or how soupy you want your Gumbo to be. The extra okra is optional, but it adds some color to my home made veg soup.

Serve over rice, or if you’re really hungry, red beans and rice. Coastal dwellers regularly add shrimp or oysters to their gumbos. The p-trak sound is the incredibly loud call of the crazed and wild guinea fowl. I want a few, as they are predator proof and require zero food. Alas, they will drive your neighbors bonkers. Maybe I should get a dozen.

Summer’s First Vegetable Soup

We jumped ahead of schedule, or maybe just jumped the shark, making this soup, as we had to work with a bunch of non-ordinary ingredient sources. In about a couple of more weeks, we will be able to make this with all fresh local ingredients. But sometimes you just can’t wait.

Ingredients

Chicken Stock

Crowder Peas

3 Ears of Fresh Corn

A small Onion

Butter Beans

Large can of Tomatoes

Salt and Pepper

Half of our ingredients were local, but the rest were scrounged for. We did have stock made from a locally grown chicken, which is unusual. The corn was fresh from the Festhalle, and the butter beans were from there as well, but they were hiding in the dim reaches of our freezer. The okra was really excellent and fresh, again from the Festhalle market. Here’s where we go worldwide.

Crowder peas are not yet in season, and hard to find fresh anyway, so we used dried peas from the famous Camellia brand from New Orleans. New Orleans folks consume as many Fagioli (beans) as Tuscany, and this brand controlled 95% of the market. They are that good. Cook these first.

The onion was an organic onion from California, and the big can of tomatoes was organic as well, but they were San Marzanos from Italy. I just happened to have some cans of them in my pantry.

MJ and I enjoyed this with some fresh corn muffins, made with McEwen cornmeal.The leftover soup will be frozen for the winter. The left over muffins were devoured by our chickens.

Last Night I Dreamed About Tomato Sauce

To quote my man Will Shakespeare, this is the “The stuff that dreams are made of,” as adapted by Bogey and John Huston in The Maltese Falcon. I woke up at six in the morning with the taste of tomato sauce in my mouth. It was then that I realized that I had been dreaming about it, possibly all night long..

It was a classic example of one part of what Dr. Freud said that dreams are made of, and this is not a particularly good translation, but it is the standard one: “the day’s residues.” For lunch the previous day I had a slice of leftover brick oven pizza, and it was still superb warmed up. It had Vidalia onion slices, Italian mozzarella, and a crust made from Caputo 00 flour from Italy. The star was still Melanie Jane’s tomato sauce. That’s what I dreamed about. Here’s her recipe, which will sauce two pizzas.

Ingredients

1 quart locally grown home canned Tomatoes–I believe these were Romas

1/2 of a diced Onion

Italian Tomato Paste in a tube–Tuscan, in this case, the brand being Tuscanini. (Aside–I had to buy this, as Toscanini is one of our favorite conductors of classical music, and his daughter married my wife’s favorite pianist, Vladimir Horowitz.)

Italian Pesto in a tube

Italian Garlic Paste in a tube–the secret weapon used by many pros

Oregano and Thyme

Salt and Pepper

This is considerably more complicated than what most Italians would make, but we aren’t Italian, at least the last time I checked. MJ then cooked it down to a concentrated strength, which gave me just enough time to get a roaring fire going in the brick oven.

Did it ever get hot. All I had was oak dead fall pieces, and they created an inferno. I didn’t burn the crust–I actually burned the sauce, as you can see from the little black line on my slice in the picture. I’ve never had that happen before.

It was still delicious. As I always tell people, don’t eat the burned part.

Vidalia Onions are Here!

The calendar may say it is still winter, but when Vidalia onions hit the shelves in the South, you know it is really spring, or Früling, or printemps, depending on your language. These things are delicious no matter how you pronounce it.

These can legally only be grown in a few counties in Georgia, where the low sulphur soil is ideal for producing perfectly sweet onions. They are eevn protected by the “Vidalia Onion Act of 1986,”which was passed by the Georgia legislature. This is a rare example of a Southern legislature doing something useful.

Use the whole plant, including the green leaves, as it is all superb. These are great raw in a salad, or sliced onto a pizza. Or any other way you want to use them.

There should be more food designations like this in the U.S. Otherwise, we will all end up eating the generic fast food “Fish Sandwich.” What fish that is on the sandwich, we probably don’t want to know.

Making Stock, and Taking Stock

We munched on our enormous Christmas duck for three days, and I turned the carcass into my favorite, duck stock. That made some serious Creole Onion Soup. Making stock, unlike pimping, is easy.

Ingredients

One dismembered Body, of Poultry or other Beast

One Onion, cut into quarters

Head of Garlic, halved crossways (kreuzweise)

One Carrot

One stem of Celery

Salt, Pepper, and Herbs

Water to cover

That’s it. I like to fry the Duck bits to start rendering out the fat, and to make the stock a little brown, before I add the other ingredients. I use even the onion and garlic skins, which is a crime to some people, but they add even more flavor, and make me feel even more like a skinflint. And with the Duck, there is also this–Duck fat skimmed off the top of the stock.

Though I am not a fat animal, I am a firm believer in animal fat, as it is usually wasted by most cooks. Duck fat is among the best, and most domestic ducks have plenty of it. It adds great flavor to any dish.

Cook the stock for as long as you want. I just put mine in a giant stockpot, and go off and do something else, and forget about it. Three hours later, the magic has happened–I have stock, which can be frozen or put in the fridge. It’s the best investment in stock you can make, with the exception of the time when I could have bought Apple stock for $1 a share. Now there is a sad story.

Beef Stew Al Fresco

This is nothing but a simple beef stew, but it was cooked in a cast iron camping Dutch Oven over an open fire, which always makes everything taste better. I will disclose the small wrinkles which add layers and layers to the dish. First, marry-nate some cubed up chuck roast, in red wine, salt, and pepper. I left mine in the fridge overnight, and then browned it in some home rendered lard, over some blazing heat.

It helped that I had the One Spoon to cook with, which I got from a small fellow with furry feet. He told me it was the one spoon to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them. Actually, I made that monstrosity out of some Carolina Buckthorn, a weed tree if there ever was one. It’s almost as long as my Amish made fireplace poker. It does keep your hands away from the fire.

I threw in a whole chopped onion, cooked it, and deglazed the whole thing with some apple wine that was mysteriously sitting next to my fire pit, and the red wine marinade. Who would have guessed?

The next step is to add milled tomatoes, and cook for an hour or two. Throw a lid on that thing, to conserve heat.

I’ve always thought of Dutch Ovens as something like primitive pressure cookers, because it takes some serious steam to leak through that massive lid. The last ingredients are salt, pepper, carrots, and naturally, taters, precious.

It would take another good hour to finish this, so I just went back to work on my great American novel, which is closing to a finish. If only it was as good as this stew turned out to be.

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