A challenge for the foodies

[rebeccmeister]

I have invited a family member up for Thanksgiving who can't do onions*, corn, or peanuts. The stuffed pumpkin recipe that I have is heavily onion-dependent. Main ingredients:

onions, breadcrumbs, Swiss cheese, sage, nutmeg, cream

Can you help me think of some riffs to replace the onions? So far I'm thinking celery.

...it looks like I'm going to have to brave the grocery shopping crowds again.



*Can't do onions, leeks, or shallots. Garlic is OK!

Comments

[graydon]

Mustard powder -- the kind that's nothing but ground mustard and probably comes in a glass jar -- will sharpen anything.

I would not go for celery -- too wet, and maybe bitter -- but radishes and fancy beets. (The stripy red-white kind, etc. fancy beets; these lack the tendency of the modern very dark red beet to collapse into sludge when baked.) A radish-beet mix can be about the correct degree of damp and the mustard will sharpen the radishes up but if it's all radishes it will likely be too sharp. It's lamentably radish-dependent but I' guess a third radishes, two-thirds beets. (Beets go well with both cheese and garlic, so heaving some garlic powder in there may well help.)

[rebeccmeister]

Mustard powder - I like it!

I am thinking that celeriac might be a good compromise - this stuffed pumpkin recipe is kind of like stuffing the pumpkin with a savory bread pudding. I'd worry the radishes and fancy beet flavor might not quite go with the pumpkin flavor. But at the same time, beets and radishes, YUM! I hadn't thought of beets as something that goes well with cheese, but now I feel like I should experiment more in this arena!

Thank you.

[graydon]

You're welcome!

Pumpkin is a wide country; if it's not a pie-pumpkin and I can see beets working but not if the proportion of bread is high. (I was thinking it was the "cup of crumbs to avoid soup" breadcrumbs.)

Heirloom beets and goat cheese works pretty well; one can take golden beets and slit them like you were slicing them just not all the way down to the bottom and introduce slivers of goat cheese in the slits and then bake. Might want to parboil the beets first (kinds depends on the size and resolve of the beets) and might also want to drizzle with walnut oil somewhere in the baking process. (If you're going to parboil, I found that, perversely, you slice first.)

[rebeccmeister]

Oh gosh, I've done a similar preparation with figs and goat cheese (definitely no need to parboil the figs!), roasted and then drizzled with honey. Yum!

Roasted beets are so delicious.

[graydon]

Parboiled figs are proto-jam, yes. :)

[(Anonymous)]

You could also just roast red beets ahead of time. Throw them in a dish with some bulgur to soak up the juices. Maybe add some garlic powder to the mix, too. The bulgur will soak up all that flavor, and you can then dump the whole mess in with the other ingredients before stuffing and roasting the pumpkin…

[scrottie]

Asafoetida.

[rebeccmeister]

I'm thinking a small pinch, yes, precioussssss....

[cmcmck]

Fennel maybe?

[rebeccmeister]

Fennel could be good! I'm leaning in other directions at this point, but some yummy roasted fennel is wonderful stuff.

[jameswatriss]

I was thinking fennel, too. With maybe some tarragon, and coriander to do sweet-ish/ savory.

[bluepapercup]

celeriac! bit of celery flavor but it's basically a root vegetable so it's not wet and gives good texture. you could mix it with the garlic, mustard, or asafoetida suggested above and I think it would do well.

[rebeccmeister]

Yes! I think this is my answer. Thank you!!

[mallorys_camera]

Celery, yeah. And carrots. And what about chives?

Fennel too, I suppose, if you can bear that licorice-y flavor. But I'm thinking fennel might not be the easiest thing to come by this time of year.

[rebeccmeister]

Thanks for the ideas! I'm not sure about chives. I think that the pumpkin itself might stand in for carrots. Our co-op might have fennel, but I think that might head in the direction of some strange flavor combinations for this dish. I do love some yummy roasted fennel, though. Hmm, it might be getting close to dinnertime just now...

[conuly]

In a pinch, a small amount of asafoetida can be used to give an "oniony" taste to a dish that has no onions.

However, if you don't normally do the sort of cooking that would require you to have asafoetida on hand, this may be going overboard.

[rebeccmeister]

Thankfully, I DO keep asafoetida on hand, and I even just replenished my stores recently! Such a useful spice, particularly for Indian cooking. :^)

[rainswolf]

I think celery could be good.
It reminds me of the idea of stuffing. Once my mother put mushrooms in it and that was good. Also, dried cherries or raisins.

[jameswatriss]

I keep thinking about this one. Last year I made a few iterations of stuffed squash last year, starting with scoring the squash halves, and adding butter, maple syrup, and garlic powder to the halves before roasting. (Then I added rice pilaf with orzo, and goat cheese.)

It occurs to me you might be able to fry up some minced garlic in butter, add maple syrup to combine, and then use that. The flavor should be close enough to onion…

[rebeccmeister]

Ohh, that sounds utterly heavenly for pumpkins! Thanks!