Caramelised Red Onion and Walnut Twists

I realised something terrible last week. It had been building for some time, feelings I couldn’t quite put my finger on kept rising, until suddenly over lunch it hit me- winter was coming. Being British sucks sometimes, we barely start getting half decent weather before the weatherman is declaring a blizzard is upon us. Sadly my stomach must have a private line to the weatherman because I have been craving all manner of foods considered ‘Autumn Winter’, with pastry and soup being right up there.

I was annihilating a bowl of French onion soup alongside some uninspiring bread, dreaming of pies and pastry (what I’m northern ok?) when I had, well frankly a stroke of genius- combine the two!

Taking inspiration from my soup I created the caramelised red onion and walnut twist. Hot, flaky with a sweet tang, and oh so perfect for dunking in soup. This is the ultimate replacement for bread with soup. Vive la revolution!

To make you will 8 twists you will need:

450g red onion
1 premade puff pastry (If Mary Berry says it’s OK, it’s good by me)
A knob (15g) butter
75g Walnuts
Milk for brushing
Cooking oil
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar

First pre heat the oven as per the instructions on the pastry.

Then slice you onions into small but long slices.

Taking a large heavy bottomed pan, cover the base with oil and bring up to smoking point and add the onions and coat them in the oil.

After a minute or so, turn down to a low heat and allow the onions to soften down for around 15 minutes.

Add the pinch of salt and sugar, and stir.

Allow to simmer for around 10 minutes more until the onions become soft and sticky. Then remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

Unroll the pastry and brush with milk.

Crush the walnuts into small chunks and scatter over the pastry, along with the cooled onions. Season with pepper if desired.

Then cut the pastry into 8 equal strips, then taking the first at each end, twist in opposite directions like a piece of string. Then repeat with the others.

Transfer onto a greased baking try and put in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

Once done, serve immediately with your favourite soup. Job done.

I’m not going to lie my mum did give me a puzzled look when I served these instead of bread, but don’t you worry my lovely’s she was soon converted. There is no resisting good old fashioned pastry.

The weatherman told me it was going to be a bit of a nippy one this week, so better dig out those thermals… oh who am I kidding this is Britain, they would never have been away long enough to need ‘digging out’!