Onion Buns from Cooks Illustrated recipe.
This Onion Buns recipe comes from Cook’s Illustrated, in its very early days when it was a digest supporting a new product called the Cuisinart food processor. Update: we were completely wrong in the above recollection. The pub was called The Pleasure of Cooking and had no relation to Cook’s Illustrated other than a (probably intentionally) similar layout. To learn more, go down this wonderful rabbit hole on eGullet. We’ve standardized the instructions for non-machine mixing. Makes 8 buns.
Ingredients:
1 medium onion, about 5 oz, peeled and chopped
2 T unsalted butter
1 ½ t active dry yeast
1 t sugar
¼ c warm water
3-3 ½ c all purpose flour
1 t salt
3/4 c water
Polenta or semolina flour
1 egg or egg white, beaten with a pinch of salt
Method: dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water and rest till frothy, about 5 minutes. Sauté onion in butter till softened. Reserve about 2 T onion for topping and mix the rest with the flour, salt, yeast mixture and 3 c water in a medium bowl. Stir to combine well then rest (autolyse) 20 minutes or so. Knead the dough 7 minutes until it shows good gluten development, adding more water if necessary to hydrate dough; the finished dough should be slightly sticky but not wet.
Burger Time! with onion buns.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rise until doubled, about 1 ½ hours. Punch down the dough then divide into 8 balls. Flatten and transfer to a half sheet pan with a silicon pad that has been lightly dusted with polenta or semolina flour. Cover with plastic wrap or a towel and let rise 3 minutes until puffy. Brush the tops with beaten egg/egg white then add a bit of onion to each one. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven 15-20 minutes until lightly browned,
