Happy New Year’s Eve! Are you celebrating tonight, or enjoying a quiet evening in? Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great time.
I wanted to share a recipe I found last week that makes the most amazing onion dip. Here in Ireland, many of the standard American party foods are not available. There are no Fritos, Velveeta, proper Lays potato chips, ranch dressing (gasp!), or french onion dip. Now – the Irish have plenty of their own “snack foods”, but they just don’t cut it when I’m craving good ol’ American-style snacks. We had a small get-together on Christmas Eve with some friends, and we wanted to serve some dishes that reminded us of home. I ran across this recipe in a Holiday Entertaining magazine from last year, and had to try it. The results were amazing – this is so much better than the stuff you can buy at the store. Don’t be put off by the amount of time it takes. Seriously. While the onions roasted, I finished other things in the kitchen. You could make this dip for your New Year’s Party tonight!
Caramelized Onion & Shallot Dip
Serves 16 – but let’s be honest, 2 people could pack it away with enough motivation!
2 lb large yellow onions, thinly sliced. I used our mandoline, but you could also use a food processor.
2 large shallots, thinly sliced. About 6 oz/170g total. Our shallots are tiny – I think I used 6.
4 sprigs thyme
1/4C olive oil
Salt and Pepper
1 C dry white wine (I used stock/water in a pinch because I didn’t have any wine at that moment.)
2 T Sherry vinegar (I used balsamic.)
2 C sour cream
1/4C minced fresh chives
1/4C plain, whole-milk Greek yogurt
2 t onion powder
Preheat oven to 425F/220C. Mix onions, shallots, thyme sprigs and oil in large roasting pan or rimmed cookie sheet. Season with salt and pepper.
Roast onion mixture, stirring and scraping down sides of pan every 10 minutes until mixture starts to break down and turn golden brown, 45-55 minutes.
Discard thyme sprigs. Add wine and vinegar; stir to scrape up any browned bits from bottom of pan. Return onion mixture to oven. Continue roasting, stirring occasionally, until deep golden brown and completely caramelized, about 15 minutes longer.
Let onion mixture cool to room temperature.
Transfer onion mixture to work surface and mince. Transfer to medium bowl. Stir in sour cream, chives, yogurt, and onion powder. Season with salt and pepper.
Dip can be made up to 3 days ahead.
Enjoy!
Recipe can be found online here.