🥘 Carole’s Roasted, Sausage Stuffed Onions…

🥘  2 pots  🍽 Serves 4-6   🛒 10 ingredients ⏱ 60 minutes £8

This is a flavoursome side dish to serve with meat or fish. You will need an oven proof baking dish, or 30cm oven proof pan.

Ingredients:

• 6 large red onions
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• sea salt
• 1 head garlic
• 500ml low salt chicken stock
• 1 tbsp flour
• 150ml single cream
• white wine
• 1/2 kilo sausage meat
• fresh thyme

Step by step:

1. Preheat your oven to 200C / 180C Fan.
2. Prepare your onions by peeling off the papery outer layer(s). Cut a thin sliver from the base (root end) to make the onions flat but not through the root so they stay intact. Trim the top of the onion by about 1/4 as per the photo (1) above.
3. Drizzle some olive oil (approx 2 tbsp) into your hands and rub it into the onions and sprinkle each with sea salt. Place the onions in the roasting dish.
4. Peel your garlic, make a small incision into each onion and insert some trimmed garlic cloves into the centre of each onion. Lay a good few sprigs of thyme over the onions and a good drizzle of olive oil. Pop them in the oven for 15-30 minutes (depending on the size of your onions).
5. Bring your stock to a boil and remove from the heat to cool slightly. Stir in the wine, cream and the flour.
6. Brown your sausage meat in a pan for a few minutes.
7. Take your onions out of the oven and remove the garlic and a few inner layers of the onion. Chop these finely and set aside. Add onions and garlic to the sausage meat and spoon these back into your onions. Pop them back in the baking dish. Pour over the stock and cream mixture and bake for another 30 minutes. Baste the onions regularly.
8. Serve, one per person with a good spoonful of the sauce and extra sprig of thyme

Tips:

• We have used small red onions because we like the slightly sweeter flavour. Experiment with large white / Spanish onions if you prefer. Try grated cheese or use chopped pancetta instead of sausagemeat.
• Step 8. We use a teaspoon to excavate smaller onions, if you are using large onions, a tablespoon will work well. If you have the right size pan or baking dish the liquid will come about 1/2 way up the onions.
• Your sauce should be thick and creamy but not gloopy, add a little hot water if necessary. Check the seasoning and add more salt and pepper if required.
• Use double cream if you prefer and vary the amount of garlic you use to suit your own taste.