One of the quickest, and to be fair yummiest, dinners on the planet has to involve buying a ready-roasted chicken from the supermarket rotisserie and eating it with some salad. But, although that’s fine in the summer, in the winter, I want something a bit more soothing and warming with my ‘take-away’ and these Kitchen Diaries onions are the perfect solution. What’s not to like about the combination of onions, cream and cheese? Especially since the ingredients are ones you may have knocking about anyway. This doesn’t take very long, tastes amazing and, with a bit of either just-bought roast chicken or leftover roast beef (Nigel’s first choice) the humble allium becomes the star of the show for once. I’ve started thinking about how to make an onion dauphinoise now…

Baked onions (adapted from Kitchen Diaries) 

For each person you will need:

Cupboard (or things you may already have)
medium onion
sea salt and black pepper

Shopping list
double cream, 50ml per onion
Parmesan cheese, about 25g per onion

How to
1. Peel the onions and top and tail them, taking care to keep them whole. Put them in a pan of water, bring to the boil then lower the temperature to a simmer and cook them until tender (about 20 minutes).
2. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan-assisted/gas 4 and grate the cheese.
3. When the onions are cooked, take them out of the water with a slotted spoon, cut them in half from root to tip and lay them cut-side down in an ovenproof dish. Pour over the cream, season and then sprinkle over the cheese.
4. Bake until bubbling and golden brown (another 20 minutes or so).