Italian Sicilian Onion Gratin | Cipolle di Giarratana Gratinate al Ragusano
The cipolla di Giarratana is not a large onion. It is an implausible one. A bulb from the good fields of the Monti Iblei weighs between 1 and 3 lb and sits flat and pale like a cushion. It is also almost entirely without aggression: very low in the sulphur compounds that make an onion bite, and loaded instead with sugar.
That is why the town cooks it whole rather than chopping it into something else. The oldest preparation buries the bulb in the embers of the hearth until the outside is black and the inside a soft sweet paste, then serves it torn open with oil, salt and bread. This gratin is the oven version of that idea, with a Ragusano DOP crust on top.
Ragusano is the other Iblei product and the pairing is not arbitrary. It is a pasta filata cheese from Modicana cows grazing the same limestone uplands, pressed into a huge rectangular block and aged on a rope. Young it melts into threads and tastes of grass and butter. Aged it turns sharp and salty and grates to a powder. The recipe uses one of each, for different reasons.
Yield: 6 side servings. Prep: 25 minutes. Cook: 1 hour 10 minutes. Rest: 10 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 45 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: contorno. Region: Sicily, the Monti Iblei in the province of Ragusa.
The Story
Giarratana is a small town at around 1600 feet in the Iblei mountains of southeast Sicily, and the onion that carries its name has been grown around it for well over two centuries. It is a Slow Food Presidium, which means a handful of growers on a few dozen acres of stony clay, sowing in February and lifting the bulbs by hand in late July. The seed is saved locally each year, which is why bulbs from two neighbouring fields do not look quite the same.
What makes it remarkable is the chemistry rather than the size. Storage onions are bred to keep, and keeping means pungency, since the sulphur compounds that sting the eyes also hold spoilage off. The Giarratana went the other way: mild enough to eat raw with oil and salt, high in sugar, and unable to keep more than a few months. The town celebrates the harvest every August with the Sagra della Cipolla, where the onions are grilled whole over wood and sold in the street.
Ragusano DOP is made a few miles away and its shape tells its history. The curd is heated, stretched and worked by hand, then pressed into a rectangular block of 22 to 35 lb called a scalone. Pairs of blocks are tied with rope and hung over a beam to age, which is why old photographs of Iblei cheese rooms look like a rope factory. It is sweet and elastic at three months and piquant and firm past a year, and both states are useful over a sweet baked onion.
Ingredients
For the onions
Cipolle di Giarratana, or the largest mildest sweet onions available, 3 lb (1.35 kg)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Dry white wine, 1/3 cup (80 ml)
Bay leaves, 2
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the cheese layer
Ragusano DOP aged about 4 months, sliced thin, 7 oz (200 g)
Whole milk, 1/3 cup (80 ml)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the mollica crust
Coarse dry breadcrumbs from stale durum bread, 1 1/2 cups (90 g)
Ragusano DOP aged over 10 months, finely grated, 2 oz (55 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Dried Sicilian oregano, 1 tsp (1 g)
Crushed red pepper flakes, 1/4 tsp (0.5 g)
For finishing
Flat leaf parsley, chopped, 2 tbsp (6 g)
Red wine vinegar, 2 tsp (10 ml)
Extra virgin olive oil, a thread per portion
Coarse sea salt, a small pinch per portion
Preparation
Cut the onions into thick slabs
Peel the onions, taking off only the papery skin and the first tough layer, and trim the root end flat without cutting into it so the layers stay anchored. Cut each bulb across the equator into slabs a generous 3/4 inch (2 cm) thick. Thinner slabs fall apart into a pile of rings; thicker ones never caramelize through. Tuck any separated outer ring back into place.
Dry roast the slabs
Heat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Brush a heavy sheet pan with half the olive oil, lay the slabs out with clear space between them and brush the tops with the rest. Season, tuck the bay leaves between them and roast 30 minutes without turning. The undersides should be deep brown and the edges nearly black in places. That colour is the flavour of the dish, and crowding the pan prevents it, because trapped steam stops the surface drying enough to brown.
Deglaze and loosen
Pour the white wine onto the hot pan around the onions, not over them, and let it hiss and lift the caramelized film off the metal. Return the pan to the oven for 5 minutes, which cooks off the alcohol and lets the slabs drink that syrup back up. Lift them off with a wide spatula, keeping each slab whole, and lower the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Toast the mollica
Warm the olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat, add the breadcrumbs and stir constantly 3 to 4 minutes until they turn the colour of toasted hazelnut. Pull the pan off, stir in the oregano and pepper flakes so their oils bloom in the residual warmth, and tip the crumbs onto a cold plate. Let them cool completely before the grated aged Ragusano goes in, since warm crumbs melt the cheese into clumps instead of keeping it loose.
Slice the young Ragusano
Cut the rind off the younger piece and slice it about 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick, roughly the size of the onion slabs. Pasta filata slices cleanly when cold and tears when it is not, so cut it straight from the refrigerator. Lay the slices out unstacked so they do not weld together.
Layer the gratin
Oil a shallow dish just large enough to hold the slabs in one layer with their edges touching. Arrange the onions, spoon the reserved pan juices over them and pour the milk around the edges rather than onto the tops. Lay the young Ragusano slices over each slab and grind black pepper across the surface. The milk keeps the base from catching and gives the melting cheese something to bind with, so it must stay underneath.
Add the crust and bake
Stir the cooled crumbs together with the grated aged Ragusano and scatter them over the cheese, pressing nothing down. Bake at 375°F (190°C) for 25 to 30 minutes, until the crust is dark gold and the cheese beneath bubbles at the edges. If the crumbs colour too fast, lay foil loosely over the dish for the last 10 minutes.
Rest, sharpen and serve
Let the gratin stand 10 minutes out of the oven. Melted pasta filata is stringy and mobile straight from the heat and needs that time to set enough to cut. Just before serving, flick the red wine vinegar across the surface a few drops at a time. It is not there to be tasted as vinegar: it cuts the sweetness of the onion and the fat of the cheese so the dish does not turn cloying by the third mouthful.
Plating
Serve one whole slab per person, lifted out with a wide spatula and set down without being cut. The dish is built around the bulb keeping its shape, and cutting it into pieces turns it into a heap of rings under crumbs. Slide the spatula to the bottom of the dish so the cheese and crust travel with the onion.
Plates should be warm but not hot, around 120°F (50°C). Ragusano at full oven heat pulls into long threads that are difficult to eat politely, while fully cooled it goes waxy. The narrow band in between, soft and yielding but no longer stringing, is what the rest and a moderately warm plate are both aiming at.
Finish at the plate with chopped parsley, a thread of raw olive oil and a few grains of coarse sea salt on the crust, where they are felt rather than dissolved. This is a side for grilled meat or Sicilian sausage, and equally good alone with bread. Serve it warm rather than hot, as it is eaten in Giarratana.
Professional Technique
The governing technique is dry roasting before gratinating, and it exists because of what this onion is. A storage onion is cooked slowly to drive off its harshness before sweetness appears. The Giarratana has almost none to remove, so slow cooking only makes it collapse and give up water. It needs the opposite: a short spell at high heat with the surface exposed, so the sugars caramelize before the structure gives way. Half an hour at 425°F (220°C) browns it hard while the centre still holds together.
The second technique is the handling of pasta filata. Ragusano curd is heated and stretched in production, which aligns its proteins into long parallel fibres. That is why it strings when melted and why it sheds fat if pushed too hot: the fibres tighten and squeeze the fat out between them. Dropping the oven to 375°F (190°C) for the gratinating stage holds the cheese below that point, and the milk underneath gives it moisture to hold on to.
The third is the split between the two ages of Ragusano, and it is a matter of moisture as much as flavour. The younger cheese is soft enough to melt into a layer, so it goes onto the onion where melting is wanted. The older one has lost most of its water and separates if melted alone, but grated into dry crumbs it browns and crisps, so it goes into the crust, where its concentrated salt is the counterweight to a very sweet vegetable.
Texture and Moisture Control
A Giarratana onion is roughly ninety percent water and every stage here decides where that water goes. Roasting uncovered on a hot sheet pan drives much of it off as steam and leaves concentrated sugar behind. Crowd the slabs, line the pan with parchment or drop the oven below 400°F (200°C) and that water stays in the dish, poaching the onion instead of roasting it.
The finished dish should hold three textures. The onion is soft and yielding but still in layers, not a purée. The cheese beneath the crust is molten and elastic. The mollica on top is dry and crunchy. That last is the fragile one, sitting directly on melting cheese, and the only thing keeping it crisp is that the crumbs were fried in oil first. Untoasted crumbs absorb moisture within minutes and turn to paste.
Sweetness needs controlling as much as moisture does. A well roasted Giarratana is genuinely sugary, and under melted cheese the dish can pall quickly. The aged Ragusano supplies salt, the oregano and chilli supply aroma and heat, and the drops of vinegar supply acidity. Take any one away and the balance shifts towards the cloying.
Professional Mise en Place
The roasting stage is long and unattended, the assembly takes four minutes, and the gratinating is a timer. Splitting the work across the two is what makes this practical for a service.
Equipment and tools
Heavy rimmed sheet pan, unlined, for the dry roast
Wide offset spatula for moving whole slabs without breaking them
Wide frying pan for the mollica
Shallow baking dish sized to hold the slabs in one layer
Fine side of a box grater for the aged Ragusano
Prepared ahead
Onions roasted and deglazed, up to 1 day ahead, refrigerated in their juices
Mollica toasted with oregano and chilli, up to 3 days ahead, in a sealed jar at room temperature
Aged Ragusano grated and kept separate from the crumbs until assembly
Young Ragusano sliced and layered between paper, up to 1 day ahead
Service setup
Oven at 375°F (190°C), not at roasting heat
Gratin assembled and held at room temperature for up to 45 minutes before baking
Crumbs and grated cheese combined only as the dish goes in
Vinegar in a small bowl with a spoon, added after the rest and never before
Plates at about 120°F (50°C), warm but not hot
Chef Tips
Outside Sicily the real Giarratana is almost impossible to find, and the honest substitute is the largest, flattest, sweetest onion your market has. Look for a bulb light for its size with thin papery skin rather than thick leathery layers. Avoid red onions: their pigment turns dull grey brown under a cheese crust.
Do not line the sheet pan. Parchment and foil insulate the onion from the metal and trap steam underneath, and you get pale soft slabs instead of dark ones. Oil the bare pan and let the metal do its work.
If your Ragusano is very young and rubbery, leave it uncovered in the refrigerator overnight before slicing. Surface drying firms it up, makes it easier to cut cleanly and slows how fast it strings. If it is very aged and crumbling, skip the slicing and grate the whole quantity into the crust.
Save every drop of the pan juices after deglazing. They amount to perhaps three tablespoons of dark syrup and they are the most concentrated thing in the recipe. Spooned over the slabs before the cheese goes on, they carry the roasted flavour into the middle of the dish.
Common Mistakes
Slicing the onions too thin. Below about 3/4 inch (2 cm) the slabs lose their structure in the oven and separate into loose rings, and the dish becomes a tray of onion under crumbs instead of six distinct portions.
Crowding the roasting pan. Slabs touching each other trap steam between them and never brown on the sides. Use two pans if you need to. Colour on the onion is the flavour of this recipe and there is no way to add it later.
Roasting at gratin temperature. At 375°F (190°C) the onion softens and weeps but does not caramelize. The first stage needs 425°F (220°C) and the second the lower heat, and one temperature throughout fails at one end or the other.
Using untoasted breadcrumbs. Raw crumbs on melting cheese absorb fat and go to paste within ten minutes in the oven. Frying them in oil first seals them and keeps the crust crisp onto the plate.
Melting the aged Ragusano. A cheese aged past ten months has too little moisture left to flow, and heated as a layer it splits and releases oil. Grate it into the crumbs instead and let dry heat brown it.
Skipping the vinegar. It sounds like a garnish and it is structural. A sweet onion under melted cheese with nothing acidic anywhere becomes tiring after three mouthfuls, and a few drops at the end keep it appetising to the last.
Wine Pairing
Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG: Grown on the red sands a short drive downhill from Giarratana, so this is the local bottle in the strictest sense. The Frappato brings light perfumed red fruit and soft tannin, while the Nero d'Avola supplies the weight to meet the melted cheese. Its acidity handles the sweetness of the roasted onion, which is where most reds fail here.
Grillo Sicilia DOC: A dry Grillo from the west of the island gives ripe citrus, a herbal note close to the oregano in the crust and a saline finish. There is body enough to sit under a cheese gratin without vanishing and acidity enough to reset the palate. Serve it properly cold, around 50°F (10°C).
Etna Bianco DOC: Carricante grown on volcanic soil is tighter and more mineral than anything from the Sicilian plains, with a sharp green apple line and a distinct stony bite. That severity is the point here: it works against a dish that is sweet and fat rather than alongside it, and it makes the small hit of vinegar at the finish feel deliberate instead of stray.
Etna Rosso DOC: Nerello Mascalese is pale, high in acid and firm in tannin, closer to a mountain red than a southern one. It has the structure for the aged Ragusano and the acidity for the caramelized onion, and its ash and dried herb aromatics pick up the charred edges of the slabs. Pour it at 60°F (16°C).
Faro DOC: A small denomination on the hills above Messina, blending Nerello Mascalese with Nerello Cappuccio and Nocera. It is more savoury and firmer than Etna Rosso, with a salty edge from the sea and a bitter herbal finish that runs against the sugar in the onion. The choice for anyone who finds the dish too sweet with a white.
Storage & Reheating
The baked gratin keeps refrigerated for up to 3 days in a sealed container, once completely cold. Cover it only when cold, since steam caught under a lid condenses onto the crumb crust and softens it beyond recovery. The roasted onions on their own keep better and are the more useful thing to store if you are cooking ahead.
Reheat in a 375°F (190°C) oven, uncovered, for about 15 minutes. The crust crisps again and the cheese melts a second time, which it tolerates once. A microwave turns the mollica to paste and drives the pasta filata past its melting point into an oily stringy mass. Refresh a dull crust with a tablespoon of fresh toasted crumbs first.
This gratin freezes better than most, because the onion gave up most of its water during roasting. Freeze it before the crust goes on, wrapped tightly, for up to 2 months, then thaw overnight in the refrigerator, add freshly toasted crumbs and bake as normal. Never freeze it with the crust in place.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 6 side servings:
Calories: 385 kcal
Total Fat: 24 g
Saturated Fat: 10 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 13 g
Cholesterol: 42 mg
Sodium: 710 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 29 g
Fiber: 3 g
Total Sugars: 11 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 15 g
Lactose: 1.8 g
Principal micronutrients: calcium, phosphorus, potassium, vitamin C, vitamin B12, quercetin
These figures are estimates. Sugars come entirely from the onion itself and rise as it caramelizes, and the sodium depends on how heavily the aged Ragusano is used in the crust.
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