The Teeny Cipollini

With all the news of sewage tsunamis, collapsing buildings, the Sunjaya controversy (what’s a Sunjaya and why’s it getting panties in a bunch?), and of course, Britney Spears entering the customary post-rehab-painful-dental-emergency phase of her recovery, I was looking forward to spending the evening curled up with one of my five favorite redheaded sexpots. (Mario Bartoli on The Food Network’s Chefography.) And because I’ve been around this particular block a time or two, I know better than to watch an Italian cooking show or The Sopranos without a pile of corresponding cuisine at hand. (Remind me to tell you about the time, late one night and halfway through Goodfellas, I called FIVE places frantically trying to get a fookin’ meatball sub. And all the boyfriend could do was laugh at me.)

The muy molto Mario called for no less than rigatoni with pink sauce, sautéed cipollini onions, and embarrassingly copious mounds of grated Della Bona Grana Padano. Sweet San Gennaro, was it a tasty abundanza! I barely remember the Mario part of the evening.

I generally shy away from cutesy but labor laden diminutive vegetables, after once buying a buttload of baby Brussels sprouts, with no prep slave at home. They tasted no different from their more mature counterparts, and that’s three hours of my life I’ll never get back. But the cipollinis are plentiful and on sale right now, so I snagged some. And so impressed was I by what they did to my pink sauce, I later tried adapting an old James Beard recipe I thought I’d once seen (but cannot now find).

As Tony Soprano would say, y’gotta do dis ting.


Miss Pleasure Pie’s Roasted Cipollinis

pound or so of fresh whole cipollini onions
2 T. butter
1 c. red wine
½ c. beef broth
¼ c. red wine vinegar
1 T. balsamic vinegar
few dashes of Worcestershire sauce
2 T. sugar (these little mothers are bitter)
1 bay leaf
1 smidge each of salt and cracked pepper
splash of olive oil

Soak the onions in hot, hot tap water for 15 minutes, then peel. (This works for garlic, too.) Preheat to 350 and select a saucepan that’s both ovenproof and approved for stovetop use. Sauté the peeled, whole onions in the butter over medium heat until browned, about 15 minutes. Add the wine, broth, vinegars, Worcestershire, and sugar. Bring to a low simmer, then move the pan to the preheated oven for about 45 minutes, or until your cipollinis are smooshy. Remove onions from pan, toss with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Some fresh cut flat leaf Italian parsley would be nice here too, if you have it. Set aside. Move the pan back to the stovetop and reduce the remaining mixture over medium heat. Tip the cipollinis back into the liquid, and once they’re re-warmed, serve ‘em saucy. Great with a steak. It’s like the tenderloin of a bowl of French onion soup, but about seven times better.

Later that night or the next day: Write your Congressman and ask them to put wads of agriculture money toward developing a cipollini onion that comes out of the ground pre-peeled, and with a cheesy crouton at the center. I hear Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is receptive to this sort of thing.