If you love onion tarts or caramelized onions, you'll like this recipe. It's fairly simple to make and the results are absolutely wonderful.
The original recipe, of course, calls for home-made puff pastry, but I didn't have the time (nor possibly the talent) to prepare it so I used store-bought frozen puff pastry. Make sure you defrost it before using. The recipe calls for 12 ounces of onions, which is equivalent to 3 cups or 3 small onions. After making it, I wished I had more onions. I would use 3 medium to large onions (or even more, you can always just eat any leftover onions) if making it again. I would also probably make smaller tarts, so you can easily eat them with your hands (as such this would be a great party dish).
I wasn't completely faithful to the instruction vis a vis using wax paper, folding, etc. - the recipe below reflects how I made it.
I served the onion tarts with a light green salad (from the supermarket salad bins), dressed with walnut oil and sherry vinegar. Mike wasn't impressed.
Savory Onion Tarts
Ingredients
1 package puff-pastry, defrosted 3 tbsp. olive oil 3 small yellow onions, thinly sliced salt 1 bay leaf a sprig of thyme Instructions
Warm the olive oil in a frying pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and a few sprinkles of salt. Let the onions cook until they start browning, then stir and let the onions cook again, stirring every few minutes until all the onions are lightly golden. Add the bay leaf and thyme, stir and cook until the onions are golden and tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and cool.
When you are ready to assemble the tarts, turn on the oven to 400F. Grease a baking sheet or cover it with wax paper. Remove the puff pastry from the box and lay flat in a working surface. Cut the pastry into squares measuring 8" across. To get two squares out of a 13" packaged sheet, you may have to cut out one square and then combine the two resulting rectangles. Place 1/4 of the cooled onions into each rectangle and spread, stopping about 1" from the borders. Fold up the borders. Bake until golden, about 20-30 minutes.
Adapted from the recipe for Savory Onion Tart, page 118 of The Zuni Cafe Cookbookt.