Recipe #4 in my new vegitalian series
A friend of mine recently visited the town of Tropea in the southern-Italian region of Calabria. When he told me he was going, my reaction was, ‘Ooh, onions!’ The town is famous for the cipolla rossa di Tropea IGT. This is a red onion so famously mild and sweet that you could eat one on it’s own. This makes it perfect for salads but also for preparing in many different ways.
On his return he presented me with a whopping 3kg bag of them fresh from Tropea. Have thrown the first onion into a greek salad, I decided I ought to develop some recipes with the rest. So here, ladies and gentlemen is number 1: torta salata a cipolle rosse di Tropea.

A torta salata is very similar to what the French call a quiche: a pastry case, filled with vegetables and sometimes meat, held together with cheese. This one, is 100 per cent vegitalian. You will notice that to keep it so I used vegetarian parmesan-style cheese, but you can obviously use parmigiano reggiano if you’re not vegetarian.

The trick with caramelizing onions, is to salt them and then to cook them as slowly as possible on as low a heat as possible. Cipolle rosse di Tropea caramelize beautifully and turn a vibrant pink colour in the process. If you can’t get Tropea onions, you can use any red onion, but the milder the better. Buon appetito!

If you want to try the Cipolla Rossa di Tropea IGP you can by them directly from the official consortium through this instagram account.
For the pastry: 200g (1 2/3 cups) plain flour 2g (1/3 teaspoon) salt 100g (7 tablespoons) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes water For the filling: 6 red onions (cipolle rosse di Tropea IGP if possible) 2 tablespoons olive oil salt 2 eggs 200ml (1 cup) milk salt and pepper 40g (3 tablespoons) vegetarian parmesan-style cheese Make the pastry: Make the filling: Make the pastry case: Make up the tart:
Ingredients
Instructions
The cipolle rosse look like shallots, which are mild, too. Thanks for your vegitalian series!
My pleasure Diane! I’m glad you are enjoying it. They are similar to shallots in shape but are much bigger. The size of an ordinary onion. And delicious!