Sunday, July 13, 2008

Caramelized Onion Bread

Today's few-ingredient recipe is a savory bread- Caramelized Onion Bread from Baking Bites.

Bread certainly is a miraculous food- powdery flour and plain ol' water coming together in a fluffy loaf with the help of millions of little bugs called Baker's yeast. Or our Indian breads- where you don't even need yeast. Just experienced hands that know how to turn out perfect flatbreads. In this recipe, Nic built in tremendous flavor right into the bread with the help of some beautiful browned onions. I halved the recipe to make a loaf of bread in a standard loaf pan, and used a mixture of bread flour and white whole wheat flour. Other than these two small variations, I followed Nic's recipe exactly.

Flour + Yeast + Onions + Sugar (tiny bit) + Pepper = Fragrant Caramelized Onion Bread

2008_97

This bread was delicious! Next time, I would make sure that I cook the onions thoroughly...this time, the water left behind in the cooked onions turned into little pockets of pasty dough in the bread. It still tasted wonderful.

I sandwiched thick slices of this bread with some cheese, popped the sandwiches into the toaster oven for just a few minutes to let the cheese melt a little, and served them with chilled tomato soup (tomato puree, flavored olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, fresh basil, salt, pepper)
2008_98


Browned onions have saved many a day in my kitchen. With no other vegetables on hand, pantry onions can be browned and used in so many ways- as a stuffing for grilled cheese or quesadillas, to dress up a simple pulao into a special meal, to add to vegetable stock to make a quick soup, and so on and on. Barbara has a very detailed tutorial on browning onions so as to coax the maximum flavor from them without turning them into charcoal.

This is yet another entry for MBP: Less is More.

If you post an entry for this event, please don't forget to drop me an e-mail telling me about it!

21 comments:

  1. I remember that recipe from Nicole's blog. I came across it just last week when I was looking for something else!:)
    Cheese sandwiches with tomato soup- nice! I'm not one for cold soups but this one sounds so good with the garlic and fresh basil.:D
    What's the olive oil flavored with?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Nupur, really nice! Everyone is busy baking, and I so want to try my hand at it. Your recipe is the one with fewest ingredients, and I definitely should try this out:-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love less is more event, since it makes cooking sooo much easier. Especially with my new job, I ll be in a real need for a round-up of this. keep me posted.

    ReplyDelete
  4. this looks scrumptious. leeks may be wonderful too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. With this onion bread you're really taking the classic grilled cheese with tomato soup to a new level. Looks delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lovely bread! I love caramelized onions to the point that I usually finish them up while cooking them and a measly few get in to the Pulao. Never tried chilled tomato soup. The combination of ingredients sounds refreshing!

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a great concept! Browned onions in bread sounds amazing! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Caramelized onions in bread sounds so good! Never tried baking bread before. Not much of me baker me.
    Have bookmarked two recipes for the MBP event. Hopefully will get to it before deadline!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Yum - must try! When I was growing up my mom would often buy "onion rolls" - they were soft rolls that were a little sweet and had lots of onions on top and inside. They made for really wonderful sandwiches.

    ReplyDelete
  10. i posted a green gram recipe recently too, but i feel i dont cook with it enough

    ReplyDelete
  11. Lovely bread... the soup looks more interesting.

    My MBP entry is out there :-)

    http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/2008/07/green-tomato-chutney.html

    And hopefully, the mail should be in your box too :-)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi Nupur! That bread looks so good! I haven't baked bread in a while. I'm sort of focused on making ice cream. : )

    ReplyDelete
  13. Caramelized onion bread sounds fantastic and with melted cheese for a sandwich - heaven!

    ReplyDelete
  14. You are soooo right about the browned onions... lots of flavor and I always have onions in the pantry. Your bread sounds lovely!

    ReplyDelete
  15. So true, browned onions have elevated many a dish from ordinariness.
    Did you go 1/2 and 1/2 with the bread flour and the wwwf?

    ReplyDelete
  16. TBC, Like you, I am not too fond of cold soups either, but that evening, it was sweltering and this cold tomato soup tasted fantastic :)
    The olive oil is infused with blood oranges...I put in a link to it once I read your comment.

    Shreya, Yes, baking is a lot of fun and definitely something worth trying :)

    Zlamushka, I know you already have a 5 ingredients or less category on your blog!

    Bee, Leeks would be just fantastic here, I'm sure. I'll try them next time!

    Lydia, It was really a delicious summer meal :) I love the grilled cheese-tomato soup pairing so much and I was glad to be able to eat it in summer.

    Bharti, I've never eaten browned onions by themselves and probably shouldn't start ;) Yes, the chilled tomato soup was just delicious.

    Kalai, I took one look at that recipe and knew I had to try it!

    Vani, Once you start baking bread you might find it hard to stop ;) it is fun! Participate if you find the time...no worries.

    Cathy, Onion rolls sound fantastic! Onions do add so much lovely sweetness to the bread. This bread is perfect for sandwiches too.

    Nags, A green gram recipe? There is no green gram here my dear!!

    Raaga, Got your entry...thanks!

    Anali, Hello! How are you doing? Yes, I see you are enjoying summer with all that ice cream. Me, I am only eating ice cream (gelato, actually), not making it.

    Cynthia, Yes- I was in heaven as I ate this simple meal :D

    katiez, Me too...I always try to keep onions in the pantry to make meals out of practically nothing.

    TheCooker, Yes, I used them 1:1

    ReplyDelete
  17. Onion bread is wonderful!! And caramelizing it is the best!
    Well and then there's garlic . . .

    ReplyDelete
  18. oh that looks fabulous - add some cracked pepper and roasted garlic! or spring onions. mmm.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Nupur? Did you move? I have not seen any new posts...I hope you are OK.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Hi Nupur, I tried the onion bread recipe after reading about it here and it turned out very well. Thanks for blogging about this.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for leaving a comment- I try to respond to every single one.