Norman was over the last few nights and we were trading off cooking spots. Monday night he made a great spring pasta with asparagus and peppers. It was nice and light so we had room for the Dutch Baby with Lemon Sugar that he made. Supposedly the dessert is “tremendously popular in Seattle” despite the fact that none of us were very familiar with it. It has been doubling as a fatty breakfast pastry too. He repeated the favor on Tuesday night, but I handled the dinner portion that evening.

Norman was raving about this dinner, so it must have been pretty decent. He is the best cook I know.

The original recipe says you can use a red or white onion. I think the presentation is much more dynamic with red, and I needed more excuses to cook them anyways. I made the gratin side dish first because I don’t have a separate broiler on our current stove. It gave it a chance to cool down a bit while I cooked the trouchia.

Chard and Onion Trouchia
Adapted from Debrah Madison’s – Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large red onion, quartered and thinly sliced crosswise
• 1 bunch chard, leaves only, torn into bite sized pieces
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 garlic clove
• 8 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 2 tablespoons chopped or torn basil leaves
• 2 teaspoons chopped thyme leaves
• 1 cup grated Gruyere cheese
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a 10inch skillet. Add the onion and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until completely soft but not browned, about 15 minutes. Add the chard and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the moisture has cooked away and the chard is tender, about 15 minutes. Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Chop or garlic fine with a few pinches of salt, then stir it into the eggs along with herbs. Combine the chard and onion mixture with the eggs, stir in the Gruyere cheese and half the Parmesan.

Preheat the broiler. Heat the remaining oil to the skillet and when it’s hot, add the eggs. I don’t think that I let my pan get hot enough. My dish stuck to the pan a bit. It was savable though.  Slide the pan back and forth a few times to make sure the eggs are not sticking. Keep the heat at medium high for about one minute, then turn it to low. Cook until the eggs are set but still a quite moist on top. Add the remaining Parmesan, slide the pan under the broiler and broil until browned. Keep and eye on it though. There is a fine line between browned and burnt.

I sliced the trouchia like you would a pie or a quiche. Enjoy.

Onion Gratin
Adapted and altered from Debrah Madison’s – Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 pounds of yellow onions, thinly sliced
• 1 pinch of rosemary
• 2 eggs
• 3 tbsp flour
• 3/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese
• 3/4 cup of heavy cream (Okay… so it is a little decadent. Treat yourself, girl.)
• 1/2 cup of water
• 3/4 cup of bread crumbs

There was plenty of “gratin” with these onions, so you can probably tone it down or add more onions to your taste. For me, they were perfect.

Butter a baking dish that you don’t mind guests seeing. Mine was a bit bigger than I needed. Someone should really buy me some Le Creuset
dishes to round out my kitchen. Preheat the oven to 350.

Put olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add onions and rosemary and stir until onions are covered with oil. After a minute or so, turn the heat down to low and cook until onions are soft and translucent, 30 to 40 minutes. If you want to go for it, I’ll bet it would be even more awesome if the onions were caramelized (1 to 1 1/2 hours on low heat).

In a bowl, whisk together eggs, flour, heavy cream and water. Add onions to the baking dish and cover it with the Gruyere cheese. Pour egg and cream mixture over the top of all of that. Sprinkle the bread crumbs over the top. Bake for 25 minutes or until the top is nicely browned.