My schedule for posting fell apart a bit this week - I had great intentions but to be honest a few things in my personal life have fallen to pieces over the last couple of weeks and posting was the last thing on my mind. Hopefully I won't be booted off the Vegan Mofo blogroll for not posting enough!
In keeping with my Egyptian food month theme - I bring you this dish. Now, before people jump on me I'll write a disclaimer about this dish. It's not an Egyptian recipe. I don't think it ever gets cooked in Egypt. So why is it part of Egyptian food month? Well, when I was doing reading about food and ingredients in Egypt I found a piece of interesting information. Apparently anicent Egyptian peasants and labourers were paid in beer and onions. Now, I'm not naive - I'm not suggesting that they cooked these up together in a fancy schmancy dish with cumin seeds. But when I heard "beer" and "onions" my brain just went "beer onions!". It sounded too delicious not to try so I did. And it was.
So these onions are inspired by ancient Egyptian peasants, hence the name. But it's a bit of artistic license on my part including it in Egyptian food month. Never mind about that - just eat some onions! These beer onions made a lovely side dish. They would also be great in a pie or wrapped in pastry like triangles. Or in little open tarts as canapés. You could do all sorts of things with them. Try adding some veggie sausages or some seitan to make a very hearty pie.
This recipe uses whole cumin seeds from my spice rack - as part of my theme for Vegan Mofo. I've already written up some interesting bits and pieces on cumin on this post, so I won't repeat myself! Jump over and check it out - you might learn something about cumin!
"Ancient Egyptian Peasant" Beer Onions
Ingredients
6 onions
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 x 375ml bottle of beer (pick your favourite vegan friendly brand)
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh thyme, to serve (optional)
To Make
1. Peel and slice the onions.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large frypan. Add the cumin seeds and toast for about 30 seconds then add the onions and sauté over a medium heat until they are softened and translucent.
3. Add the bottle of beer. Cover and cook over a medium heat for about 30 minutes, or until the onions are completely cooked and the beer has become saucy and thick.
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve sprinkled with fresh thyme (optional).
Serves 6 as a side dish, or makes enough filling for 1 pie.
This
month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Egypt.
Check
out my other Egyptian recipe posts:
WOW...THIS POST IS SO INFORMATIVE....NEVER HAD KNOWN OF THIS DELICIOUS ONION RECIPE BEFORE...WE LOVE IT :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear about your personal life! I hope things have calmed down, or calm down soon <3. Beer and onions are a fantastic combo. My husband makes vegan sausages in a beer and onion sauce that is so. good. I'll be honest, depending on the task I might accept beer and onions as payment. Just once. For like cat sitting or something.
ReplyDeleteCumin is awesome, but more importantly I hope things are going better/less stressfully/less worryingly for you!
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting. Is there any particular type of beer you would recommend using for this dish?
ReplyDeleteI would suggest a mild flavoured beer. If you use a stout or a dark beer then the beer flavour will really over power the dish. A pale ale or light beer will have the right flavour without overpowering the lovely sweetness of the onions.
DeleteI think it would be interesting to dehydrate and powder the beer onions to try out as a spice.
ReplyDelete