Red Onion Tarte Tatin

A friend of my SO's sent him a message to ask for French vegetarian dishes.  He asked me.  I thought about it for a moment or two and suggested a red onion tarte tatin, and then flipped through the nearest cookbook to come up with a gratin recipe.  But the idea of a red onion tarte had worked its way into my brain, and I wanted to make it.  So I looked through a few online recipes and found one on Delia Smith's website which looked like what I wanted.  Except...well I sort of had a feeling that some goats cheese melted on the top would be divine.  The next recipe I looked up was a Jean-Christophe Novelli that was more complicated, but had goats cheese added at the end!  So I decided to marry the two things up.

I halved enough red onions to cover the bottom of my Le Creuset omelette pan, melted some butter and added a little sugar to it, then lay the onions in cut side down and cooked them for a few minutes.  I added a dash of balsamic vinegar and cooked them a little longer, then popped them in the over at Gas Mark 4 for about half an hour (they were small onions, larger ones will take longer!).  Back on to the hob to reduce any onion juices, and I topped them with some gluten free shortcrust pastry I had found in the freezer and baked them for another half an hour until that was golden.  I flipped the whole tarte onto a baking sheet, dotted with goats cheese and popped it back into the oven to melt.  Delicious!