Something We Made A While Ago

So I haven't told you how to make pizza dough yet, but this picture was on the camera, and I couldn't resist posting about it.

So take an onion and roughly julienne it. The goal is a bunch of longish, wide-ish strips, if you don't know how to julienne an onion. Now to caramelize: heat up a pan over low heat on the stove. When the pan is warm (hold it near your face and gently blow to check), add the onions dry. You want to extract the water from the onions now, so that the sugars can reach caramelizing temperatures later. Add a decent pinch of salt to speed this portion up, and cover the pan. Stir fairly frequently, but not constantly; the onions will release enough moisture that they won't really stick.

Once you start to see some browning on the onions, it's time to uncover them and add some fat, so they cook more evenly. A little bit of olive oil works just fine, though you can use other oils or clarified butter. Solid butter won't quite do the trick; the milk solids will burn before the onion sugars caramelize, so use a liquid fat for this recipe at least. Continue to stir until they are an appropriate shade of brown; I like them to be quite soft, but retaining their individual shape. Remove the onions to some kind of container and let them cool.

Now, roll out your pizza dough (which you've acquired through means other than this blog, since I haven't told you how to make any yet) and set your oven to 550, or as high as it will go if it can't reach that. When the onions are cool enough to handle with your bare hands, add a few solid dashes of balsamic vinegar. You don't want the onions dripping in it, you just want enough to coat. Now, when the oven is hot enough, rub some olive oil over your pizza dough, add a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper, and set it in the oven for five minutes, preferably on a tray to make it a bit easier to handle.

After five minutes, you should see just a touch of brown around the edges. Pull the pizza out, and working quickly, spread the caramelized onions over the pizza, leaving just a tiny crust. Remove the pizza from the pan and toss it back into the oven, directly on the rack (it should be firmed up by now.) Let it go for another five minutes, or until it's golden brown all around. Remove it from the oven and immediately grate some nice Parmesan over the whole thing.


Now let the pizza cool, slice it into wedges (don't use a pizza slicer, it will butcher your crust and your onions,) and enjoy.