PLEASED WITH MYSELF

At lunchtime today I decided to use my giant white Giarratana onions to attempt cipolle ripiene [baked, stuffed onions], a popular dish all over the south of Italy. I am pleased because it turned out rather better than I expected, considering that I cobbled together ideas from Carluccio, Lorenza de' Medici and Elizabeth David and guessed the quantities: Both Lorenza and ED tell you to boil the onions [peeled, says Lorenza, unpeeled says ED] for 15 minutes first, but Carluccio doesn't, as he is using red onions which don't need to be peeled. I should think the purpose of boiling them is to tenderise them, though, not to make the peeling easier. Given the size of these particular onions, I decided that it would be best to do the boiling, then, once they were cool enough to handle, I peeled them [not that there was much skin on these] cut the tops off and hollowed out the centre as best I could. [OK, I broke a bit off the edge of the one on the left but I'm not Nigella or Saint Delia!] Then the fun bit: following the suggestions of all 3 cooks, I made a stuffing mixture from grated parmigiano and pecorino, breadcrumbs [the fine pane grattugiato that we can buy in packets here; in Britain you could use wholemeal breadcrumbs but do make them yourself from day-old bread - don't use those dry breadcrumbs that you can buy there] capers [always use salted ones if you can] chopped black olives, a little chopped, cooked ham, chopped basil and parsley and of course seasoning. I used eggs and olive oil to bind the mixture together. ED adds anchovies , in which case you would leave the salt out, but as I am allergic to any sort of fish that was not a possibility for me. Then I drizzled olive oil over and baked them in an oiled roasting dish at 200 C for 30 minutes. You can, of course, use smaller onions and I should think red ones would look very pretty.

In the top picture they are ready to go in the oven, in the second one they have just come out, in the third I have just cut one and I wanted to show you the texture of the pane grattugiato. You wouldn't need to get your breadcrumbs anywhere near as fine as this so don't worry!