Onions, love eating them, hate cooking them! After so many years of kitchen experience with this bold statement of a vegetable, I still have not made the profound discovery that has yet been able to prevent me from shedding a fair amount of tears each time I cook it!
I have tried all possible solutions, which seemed to have failed me miserably: wooden spoon in the mouth (tears plus drool everywhere), bowl of water placed closely next to the chopping board (tears plus less room on the kitchen counter), holding my breath (nearing collapse if not walking away every few seconds to replenish my oxygen supplies), I could go on. But hey, the struggle is worth it!
Coming from an Indian background, onions are the quintessential ingredient in all of my cooking, and I mean everything! Unfortunately in my city of Changde, I only have access to red onions and spring onions so I was somewhat limited with this stout bulbous root, but that didn’t cause too much of a hindrance. Thank you again 
So placing onion in the cuisine as the centre piece, my components for this week are:
Pickled onion and pulled chicken pancake; French onion soup gel sphere; Aligot-topped stewed onion; Cardamom-infused onion and potato rosti; Onion seed powder
Pickled onion and pulled chicken pancake
I made some quick-pickled onions by filling a jar with ¾ white vinegar, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt and topping off with some water (optional depending on how tart you like your pickles). I added some roughly chopped spring onions and left the liquid to infuse with the onions.
In the mean time, I placed chicken breast in the oven coated with oil, salt and pepper and left to cook in foil at 180C for 25 minutes. Once cooked, I used a pair of forks to tear the chicken apart into fine shreds, ready to be stuffed into rice paper rounds.
I used Vietnamese rice paper pancake sheets because their transparency coupled with texture just adds so much dimension to a modest dish. They simply need to be steeped into cold water for 2 minutes one by one (not all 100 sheets at once as a friend of mine once did!) and they should leave the water no longer opaque but almost as clear as a glass window. Once at this stage they become very fragile and sticky so ensure that your hands are wet (it’s easier to handle the sheets) and place onto clingfilm to avoid the sheets sticking to the surface.
The pulled chicken and pickled onions can now be lined in the middle of the rice dough circle and then wrapped tightly using fingers and some assistance from the clingfilm when rolling, in the same style in which you would wrap a fajita. When the rice paper roll has been fully assembled, the dish is complete and you can finally move on- and no tears, thank goodness for spring onions (although the stronger, larger ones are guilty of generating a tear or two!).
French onion soup gel sphere
In a saucepan, melt 3 tbsp butter and add 1kg of finely sliced onions (white are preferable but I only have red available). When soft and translucent, stir in 1 tsp brown sugar and allow to cook for 25 minutes on a low heat to allow onions to brown and slightly caramelise. Stir now and again to avoid sticking to the pan. Add 1 tbsp plain flour and continue to stir. Next, slowly add 100ml white wine and 500ml vegetable stock (made with water, celery, carrot, bay leaves, peppercorns and salt) and stir to avoid any lumps. Simmer for another 20 minutes.
Strain the mixture (should be roughly around 450ml liquid remaining) and dissolve 2g agar powder into the onion soup broth whilst heating. Cool the mixture down and pour into moulds, allowing to set in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
Aligot-topped stewed onion
To avoid any waste, the onions leftover from the onion soup recipe formed the basis of my onion filling. To the already-browned, cooked onions, I added 1 tbsp brown sugar, 3 cloves crushed garlic, a pinch of nutmeg, a dash of red wine and left on a low heat with the lid on for 20 minutes.
For the aligot, an extremely stretchy, cheesy, Parisian-style mashed potato, I boiled and mashed 1kg of white potatoes using an electric whisk, and whilst still hot, added salt, pepper, 50g butter and 400g grated cheddar cheese. I increased the speed of the whisk gradually until a glossy, white, stiff mixture was achieved.
I used a cookie cutter (yes admittedly my kitchen utensils limit versatility in China!) to assemble the layers of stewed onion and potato.
Cardamom-infused onion and potato rosti
Using a mandolin (the most treasured item in my kitchen!), I shredded 1kg of potatoes and then placed these in an oven to soften slightly for 10 minutes at 200C.
I thinly sliced 1 onion and pan fried slightly before mixing with the potatoes, salt, pepper, crushed cardamom seeds and 3 tbsp plain flour. Using my wonderfully flexible cookie cutter (which comes in 2 different sizes, hence the differently sized rostis I produced!), assemble the potato and onion mix into a frying pan with hot oil and fry for 5-7 minutes on each side until golden brown.
Onion seed powder
I never actually knew what onion seeds looked like until I watched my mum cook a particular dish at the tender age of 16 to which she added black unfamiliar seeds. When questioned about them, she pointed at an onion on the kitchen counter followed by a bewildered face expression, surprised that I had never encountered an onion seed. Come on, which teenager in England comes across onion seeds in their everyday life?!
Needless to say, I grew up cooking, usually having difficulty trying to track onion seeds down, so each time I was granted a visit by my parents, a bag of onion seeds would arrive with them for my disposal!
I actually didn’t intend on using onion seeds in this dish since I'd accepted the fact that I would never find them anywhere, but my parents kitchen! However, I was swept with overwhelming delight when I caught a glimpse of them, in yet another wonderfully weird section (not as weird as the mushroom section I must say!) of the supermarket.
The seeds very much resemble black sesame seeds, which is initially what I thought they were until google translate (alongside my VPN of course) implied that I was wrong! These ones are slightly smaller than the ones I know in England, but hey, size doesn’t matter, at the end of the day, they’re only going to be toasted lightly in a frying pan, blitzed in a blender and then plated!