Three days after I got home from Williamsburg, I couldn’t stop thinking about the onion pie at Chowning’s Tavern. So I made an onion pie.
I used the concept from the recipe below. I didn’t use any eggs, though. I included a couple of Morningstar’s vegetarian breakfast sausage.
Recipe for Williamsburg onion pie
Though sliced boiled eggs inside the pie doesn’t sound terrible, I think that the next time I make onion pie I’ll include some grated Gruyère, the better to bind the layers of apples and vegetables. I was afraid that the pie would be dry, but the liquid that the apples and potatoes lost during cooking took care of that. A very slight dusting of potato starch inside the pie might also be an improvement.
Except for the calories in the crust, there’s nothing at all unhealthy about onion pie. With a little tweaking, this kind of old-fashioned cooking could be just as healthy as the Mediterranean cooking that has become a kind of international standard for travelers. Our ancestors were right — mace and nutmeg are the perfect seasoning for this pie. While the pie was baking, my house smelled just like Chowning’s Tavern.
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