As you know, I have love-hate relations with an onion. Choping onions is a real pain, tears and suffering for me. But the taste… oh, I love eating onions – soups, sauces, stewed onion, raw onion – name it, I like it.
In Poland, onion is a very popular vegetable and, sometimes I think, that making onion dishes has become a national sport, judging by the number of recipes with onions you can find.
When I was reading family recipe notebooks, I found two really great recipes. First is onion sauce – made by a cooking onions for a long period of time. The second recipe was written by one of my aunts and it is all about Guiness.
I was thinking about these recipes few days. My onion problem is first reason why I didn’t want to make both recipes. As I liked both ideas… I thought, I was planning, I was thinking.
And then I looked at the bread sitting third day on the kitchen table top (we do not eat much bread, to be honest), I decided to make bread sticks with guacamole. But, finally, I didin’t buy any avocados, cause… ONION! I had two really amazing onion recipes.
And so the idea of an onion dip started.
The problem is Guiness, and more precisely the fact that Guiness is not vegan or even vegetarian, because in the process of filtering the beer is used an isinglass (glue produced from dried fish swim bladders). Yes, the company announced the resignation of the animal ingredients, and new informations about reports of customizing the recipe or production line appear every few weeks. However, real vegan Guiness still has to appear on the shelves.
Many local breweries produce vegan stout beer. I will not give you names, because crafted beer is simply local and something that is available to me in Sosnowiec, in Krakow will not appear at all.
Fortunately, with the help of sites such as Barnivore, you can find the drink you’re interested in. You can also search on Google or, like me, you can call the hotline (I do not recommend it, it’s a pretty tiring form of contact) or write emails to the manufacturer.
In times when Internet access is instant, finding beer information is not a problem at all.
Look for beer with a strong coffee flavor.
And there is another problem with the onion dip. Taste.
The taste is very specific – the sweetness of the onion and the strong taste of coffee and dark beer, the same time bitter and sweet. It may turn out that the dip will not taste good for most of you. However, as for me, it perfectly blends with breadsticks (especially from rye bread), celery and carrot.
As always, I recommend you to try it out. Bon Appetit!
Ingredients:
3 onions
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
0.5 cup (about 125 ml) of stout beer
1 cube (180 g) of natural tofu
300 ml coconut milk
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon fresh ginger
1 teaspoon fresh garlic (1 – 2 cloves of garlic)
1 teaspoon ground mustard
1 teaspoon black pepper
0.5 teaspoons of asafetite
Preparation:
- Peel onions, cut into quarters.
- Translate into a pot and add: beer, olive oil, sugar and salt. Cook on a very small fire (or in a freelancer) about 8 hours. (Make sure to choose a pot with a very tight lid, because for these 8 hours smell of the the onion cooking become very strong)
- Blend tofu with coconut milk and add to the onion with the spices.
- Cook it for about 2h.
- Blend and, if needed, season with salt and/or pepper.
Bon Appetit!
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