Stuffed onions

Serves 8

Trying to dream up some new vegetable for Christmas Day – apart from the ubiquitous parsnips, sprouts and carrots – can be tricky, but one that we often forget is the humble onion. Stuffed onions are a great alternative to making a stuffing, as everyone gets their own little package of stuffing encased in their own onion.

Ask your butcher to reserve the kidney and liver from the suckling pig – if not, you can just buy, say, 200g of liver (either pig or chicken).

8 small to medium onions
100g butter
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
200g pig or chicken livers, cleaned and finely chopped
tbsp thyme leaves
100g fresh white breadcrumbs
2tbsp chopped parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 5. Cut about 1cm off the top of the onions (the opposite end to the root), replace it and wrap the onions in foil. Stand them on a baking tray and cook for an hour, or until they are fairly soft. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a thick-bottomed pan and fry the garlic, liver and thyme on a fairly high heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring every so often, then remove from the heat. Once the onion is cool enough to handle, scoop out the onion with a spoon, leaving a couple of layers from the skin to hold it together and leaving the tops intact.

Finely chop the onion flesh you have scooped out and mix with the liver, breadcrumbs and parsley and season to taste. Spoon the mixture back into the onions and replace the lids. Place the onions back on a baking tray, cover with foil and return to the oven for about 30-40 minutes. You can keep these warm for about 30 minutes or serve straight away.