Roasted Onion Oil

At Hartwood restaurant on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, almost every dish gets a splash of this oil. Soon, yours will too.

Before you start
You want the pan packed with onions, so that the exposed tops curl open and turn black in the oven. At home, you may only want a few onions to finish a dish, but put a jar in the fridge and, alongside the onion oil, you’ll have a shortcut to the kind of complexity you find on a restaurant menu. Drizzle the oil over grilled steaks, squid, vegetables, whatever…

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 230 °C.

Place the onions in a sturdy 25-centimeter-diameter pan and add enough olive oil so that only 1 centimeter of the tops of the onions is visible. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Roast the onions for 45 minutes, until the tops are black; if necessary, switch the oven to the grill setting for the final 5 minutes to char the onions. Let everything cool.

Strain the oil into a 1-liter measuring jug; set the onion aside. Pour the oil back into the original bottle (simply use a funnel in the neck of the bottle). Store the sealed oil in a cool, dark place (it will keep longer in the fridge; take the bottle out 1 hour before use so that the oil becomes liquid). Store the onion covered in the fridge.

The Hartwood kitchen, Eric Werner & Mya Henry
€ 29,95
Fontaine
Image: Gentl & Hyers